Chapter 4, Page 34

For those of you who were wondering what Bex was hauling in that bag, it was just a bunch of random dead animal parts! Pretty normal

Not much new news, will be posting a Meek update tomorrow and another Mare page sometime after that.

Repeated older news:

My first webcomic, The Meek, was nominated for an Ignatz Award for Outstanding Online Comic :] Do I have any chance? no idea, but if you’re going to be at SPX, it would mean a lot if you’d consider voting for my work!

Speaking of conventions, I’m in Idaho this weekend for Boise Library Comic Con. Doing some small panels and portfolio reviews and such :] I am not entirely sure what Idaho in generally but the weather this weekend is going to be about 100 degrees, which is a crime against me personally. After that, I’ll be a guest at RCCC in Portland in early September, and then I don’t have to leave my house for the rest of 2017 thank god

And since this might be the last post I make about this while the campaign is still going, there’s a bit over 2 days left if you’d like to grab a pin while you get a bunch of free stuff along with it, including a little digital minicomic about the LEVster~

41 Comments

  • Bradford

    I’m in Idaho right now, flying out of Boise tomorrow.

    • shingworks
      • Thank you for that. The POE is strong with this one.

      • MikeLinPA

        Even accepting it as parody, it was still really hard to read. I only got halfway through and decided life was too short to spend it on that page.

  • Esc

    Kalla is so nosy, I’m dying.

    • shingworks

      She also relieved Mike of his pants earlier, I don’t think she quite understands the acceptable human range of helpfulness.

      • Esc

        I get the impression she half wanted to just get a better look at these weird humans’ bodies. Jeez Kalla perving all over Mike’s quad muscles.

      • Linebyline

        Either that, or she does understand, but takes the “better to ask forgiveness than permission” approach to snooping.

        • shingworks

          And I guess Bex was holding her skeleton, that’s probably the most egregious snoop of all.

          • Linebyline

            And I don’t remember Bex asking for forgiveness or permission. Rude to just go through someone’s bones like that and not say anything about it.

          • Linebyline

            (Though in this case, saying something might be even worse.)

    • Pylgrim

      “I apologize for invading your privacy, yet I am not going to give you an explanation for my doing so, nor show remorse. Here’s a gift based in what I discovered and which I’ll make a point of not to judge!”

      Kalla is every teenager’s mother.

  • Kaliburn

    I’m confused. Hasn’t she violently mauled Kala? Why isn’t she more surprised?

    • DukeBG

      the latest backup didn’t include those memories, just like she doesn’t remember how LEVi’s robot form “died”

    • shingworks

      She did, but she either hasn’t figured out that this is the same exact person she killed earlier, or does realize that, and has prudently decided not to bring it up.

      • CharlesW81

        Yeah, I was thinking the same.

        She’s just sitting there thinking she’s killed a member of Kalla’s species.

        She’s yet to understand Kalla is the only known living member of her species right now and that the creatures down here are reconstructed (resurrected?) with all the memories from their last interaction with the water.

      • Kent

        It’s interesting how you write about your character’s thoughts as if you don’t know exactly what they’re thinking, even though you’ve planned out all their actions.

        • shingworks

          I’d rather stick to letting the story tell itself XD so I tend to respond with informed-audience voice rather than the voice-of-god, more fun that way

  • DukeBG

    Debris net, like this kind of net?

    • shingworks

      Haha, they might show up in the comic later. But, more like nets suspended from the ceiling to catch loose rocks.

      • DukeBG

        yeah, gotcha

      • CharlesW81

        So she essentially pulled one out during her drop (that likely went for so long she had time to both think of it and perform it) then tied of some ends to herself and just fanned it out to catch onto rock edges.

        Clever girl ;)

  • DukeBG

    Also, a though: Kalla says, she’s been searching for Mike everywhere. Her last memory, most likely, is about his speach on that shore. She does remember him adjusting better. If you were looking for something (/somebody), where would you look first? Obviously, the place where you’ve last seen it. What happened not that far from that place and probably has a lot of trails of the chase that occured, maybe with some blood droplets along the trail? What would Kalla find there?

    Now, there are some options.

    1. Although, Kalla says, she’s been searching for Mike everywhere, she was just resurrected and she’s only going from the Processor’s Zone and haven’t explored much of the territory yet, didn’t get to that shore yet.

    2. Bex cleaned up the corpse place right after those events. She def would have done it after first leaving Levi under the wrapping in her cave, otherwise Levi would be… aware… of how Kalla died. This option seems most plausible for me. Although, I’m not entirely sure what Bex did with the corpse.

    3. The chase trail wasn’t as prominent or Bex cleaned it up, so Kalla was on the shore, but didn’t go up that hill and didn’t see the corpse.

    3b. The thrips and other biorobots of MI “cleaned up” the corpse. Or cleaned up the chase trail enough for Kalla not to notice, dunno. Dragged the corpse to throw it into the Mirror to deteriorate? BTW, that makes me think that the Mirror is basically a garbage can. Mike went diving into the garbage can. «What an idiot» – Kalla thought at the time.

  • CharlesW81

    If these three can team up, I see potential for the best chance at escaping the caverns.

    LEVi doesn’t really add much to the team but he does possibly know AI responses and processes better than the other two (Mike could help in that department if he was there as well), he likely has good knowledge of the area from his mapping as well, probably not as good as Kalla but maybe his sensors picked up things she could never have known.

    Kalla is the martian who’s race actually made all this and who has the best chance of understanding the artificial organism’s functions and purpose.

    Bex knows complex insect routines and purposes but more importantly can actually communicate with almost any of the artificial organisms down here and translate to Kalla and LEVi who might be able to guide her on orders for them or questions.

    The only thing missing might be access permissions… and I feel like Mike may somehow have these for unknown reasons.

    • Ben

      …. and, if they escape, and neither of them have pressure-tight suits or viable helmets, and no form of suit at all for Threvi or Kalla?

      • shingworks

        yep, the actual problem. Only one character cares about that at the moment.

        • CharlesW81

          Hmmm, We know Bex still had her helmet but not sure if her suit is still able to pressurise or if she still has her rebreather.

          It’s possible that some organisms, or combination of them, are able to perform the functionality of a pressure suit. Really though, the best bet would be to just get Bex’s emergency beacon out of the cavern and let it get a clear transmission to the surface. Then its a case of being rescued.

        • PositronicGirl

          Dear Processor
          I would like to get out of this cave and also could I have EVA suits for me and my friends, and a radio transmitter, and a car would be nice, pleaseandthankyou

  • Fawnet

    Bex is handling this well, isn’t she? If I killed someone, and they came back to life and were all chatty and polite with me, I’d be much more uneasy than she is!

    • Jac

      She is also on Mars, seeing all sorts of weird things, and is now friends with a bug that was once a robot.. I would say her tolerance for weird stuff is pretty high by this point.

      • DukeBG

        “One crazy thing at a time, please”

  • Rev

    OH DANG, I live in Portland! It’ll be cool to have you here, hehehe.

  • Saberbeam

    A bag full of random dead animal parts you say? So like anything savvy dungeon delver, Bex is picking anything of even the slightest possible interest in the event that it might be useful later. And of course, not using them even when they’d help, because you might need them even more later.

    • GreatContagion

      *200 [Slime]s later* “Bag’s all full, huh?” *squishing a rib cage down into the muck contained in an impressively waterproofed backpack* “Better clear some trash.” *slime-covered [Fly Wing]s plap on the stone floor* “Excellent. That brings my [Giant Cockroach Leg] collection to a neat one hundred. I am the best adventurer.” *heads for the surface, enchanted sword in hand, paid for entirely by [Slime] sales*

  • I have to ask. Rebekah was in stasis? I probably missed this somehow.

    • shingworks

      She got knocked out/ was asleep for a bit after Kalla grabbed her out of the air

      • That was a very odd choice of words on Kalakore’s part, then. Does she not know what sleep is? Hm…

        • shingworks

          They don’t sleep the way that humans do, although they do have low-energy states of varying lengths. She’s probably not sure what’s going on with humans in general since Mike and Bex have both passed out on her watch for various reasons.

  • TuesdayNightCompany

    Yes, Michael seemed to be adapting well enough for having a thighfriend and a toaster fused to his face.

  • Mountain Laurel

    I thought at first that Kalla went through Bex’s stuff to part her from any sharp weapons she might have, but I think Kallakore’s genuinely at ease here! I was trying to suss out her body language, and comparing Kalla’s relaxed T-shaped crest on this page to her tense Y-shaped crest on ch3-page-29. Does that actually indicate stress, or is it indicating something completely different?

  • Saddust

    Your comic is so awesome ! Only thing : the pages are a bit small and make it difficult to read for my poor eyes.

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