King of Swords 10-166
“Once, Lord Intra came to the Vale of Stalks. It was a broad land with a hardy and beautiful people that wove stems of grass into elaborate mats. There were frequent harvest songs and offerings to the God of Pigs.
Unfortunately, at the time, the people were starving. The land was ruled by Yem Yeddo and his family, who had sucked the life out of it for some time. That was the way of things in those days. Though the soil was quite fertile, Yem Yeddo had surrounded himself with thickset and well-fed men, who lacked in brains but made up for it in muscle and the same kind of canniness found in very smart dogs. These men he used as tax collectors, and he drained the land of every third, fourth, and fifth bale of crop, and sold it for crude coin, feeding the scraps to his thugs.
Lord Intra arrived at the local way house and was served black bread, as was the custom, but skesh was strangely absent, and the bread was thin and mealy. When Intra asked why, he quickly learned of the lands’ plight.
“What of the peregrine lords that tend this place?” He asked.
“They were killed by thirty men, and hung from a tree for seven days,” said the inn proprietor, with a look like a beaten animal.
Intra could not abide this. He called out to Yem Yeddo in the spare and decaying market square, who brought his thirty men.
“Preem Yeddo,” bellowed Intra, “You are a cruel and petty man. How can you scour this land so and not feel for the people that call it their abode?”
Yem Yeddo laughed. “Let them eat the stones, for all I care,” said he.
Intra, who was not one to balk at such matters, picked up a particularly large rock and said, “So it shall be. I shall feed the people with this stone.”
– The Song of Maybe
I think Abbadon is having a grand old time drawing White Chain’s new face.
Also, can we get some props for Grandpa Vigilant Gaze being the right kind of family who is clearly being a proud and protective ally for newly realized granddaughter?
*yuri intensifies* lmao
10 Vigilant Gaze is quite the gentleman here, or gentleaeon as someone else said.
I wonder what 6 Juggernaut Star thinks of all this? She certainly appears to be capable of watching from the void, unless all angels can do this. I’d be surprised if she wasn’t watching this event, maybe it’s something new to then that breaks from the cycle.
She’s probably fuming and hating creation.
More.
White Chain’s Smile: I want to protect it. I want to see it grow up healthy. I want to tell my friends and neighbors about it.
This is all wonderful, of course, and I am delighted for White Chain… but can we get a moment of appreciation for that Intra tale? “I shall feed the people with this stone.” What a line!
inb4 intra just cracks thirty-one heads with the stone and goes, okay, have their food already
Yeah me too, I was shuddering to think what Intra’s gonna do with that stone. Not turn it into bread, I imagine.
That stone is going on top of Yem Yeddo’s Heado
There are many ways to feed people. Sometimes you feed people. Sometimes you feed people a bolder till their skull explodes, so you can feed the rest of the people.
So… is a bitter and twisted love triangle between a woman, a demon, and an ex-angel on the cards now?
I certainly hope so. Is it too early to speculate on a cast for the live action version?
Or perhaps an open, honest relationship between three people in some combination who seen no need to conform to monogamous societal norms
Seriously, if they settle into a triad I’ll just
dunno, really, throw them a party?
Have they set up a gift registry somewhere? Because I will gladly buy them a bundt cake pan!
WC isn’t an ex-angel.
She’s still an angel, just incarnated in flesh, rather than inhabiting stone.
Seriously, I am tickled pink by that beautiful smile on the last panel. Let’s also give props to WC’s gentleman angel of a brother there. ❤️
I was legit thinking of that too, Solomon would totally take off his pants and walk naked proudly, he does not care what others think.
Oh I’m sure he LOVES showing off his meat. By which I mean… his muscles, of course…
I’m starting to dream about what White Chain’s hair is going to look like when she unbraids it, if Abbadon ever lets her! Please, Abbadon? Please, please. please?
10 vigilant gaze strikes me as a knight shielding his lady here 🙂 its very sweet. love this new look for white chain!
My bet is it’d look a lot like her old angel-shape’s hair
Titans to Olympus came.
A gleaming rock declared a game.
No-one basked in Everflame.
Pull a bleacher, stay a while
Sit amongst the rank and file
Bloodlust quelled by radiant smile
How are fans of this comic so talented? Who are you, where do you come from?
Nae all us be sae talentsome
Unce here be us imbued by thums
Nae who us be, but is us’ sum
Mair that we’s here than where be frum
“6. – Love of self is the true exercise of the God called I.”
– Psalms, book I
So… is she mortal now? Did she accidentally an Aesma? What are the cosmological implications of an angel becoming human?
Can she still step outside of her “shell”? I guess that was just krayu mat?
LOTS of questions.
1. Is she mortal now, or will she still reincarnate.
2. If she reincarnates, would it be in flesh or as a normal angel.
3. Is she still a super-human warrior?
4. Does she still consider herself an angel? Does the concordance agree?
5. If she’s really “just” a human woman now, what does she want to do with her finite, vivid life?
6. Did she plan this transition? (I thought no, not in this form, but who knows?)
7. Can the other angels do this too if they want it enough? Will they?
…and putting all the less-important questions, is she really happy now? Lovely smile, but she was weeping 30 seconds ago.
One was wondering if she is able to still visit us in the Void in her pure angelic form?
And if so what becomes of the flesh vessel for the duration?
If she and her shell are one now then she could still come, but would she be much more definite in form perhaps than say the see-through Allison for example, due to her stronger flame.
Weeping in relief and happiness, then augmenting with vivacious smile.
Can takes good care o yon new vessel us. Promise, honest.
> Lovely smile, but she was weeping 30 seconds ago.
“I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.” – Gandalf Mithrandir, 3021 TA
Have you never wept for joy? I highly recommend trying it at least once.
Also, White Chain is currently experiencing having a physical meat body for the first time– and flesh is full of hormones and neurons and even microbes that affect your emotions. When my hormones are out-of-whack, I get incredibly weepy (I’ve been known to cry at commercials because they had cute puppies in them), and that’s from someone who’s been living in flesh my whole life! It’s quite understandable that tears might spring up unbidden in a situation like this.
HOLY SHOOT INDEED, ALLISON!
Vigilant Gaze, big props for the basic courtesy. Credit also to Allison for trying. But really I’m all about the last panel. ALL about. ♥
Yep. Note VG’s hand still protectively on her shoulder. Looking at the line art on Patreon, I was half expecting her to announce their engagement.
By the way taxing “every third, fourth and fifth” bale of crops seems like a fast road to the guillotine. Out of 100 bales of corn, say, everyone would pay (33+25+20) SEVENTY-EIGHT in tax. I imagine the fiftieth one that you have to pay twice would be the tipping point.
(Re-establish progressive taxation to save us from the billionaires please.)
Wait a minute, my brain must have been mostly asleep. There’s much more double tax than that. Let’s count it out.
3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27, 30, 33, 36, 39, 42, 45, 48, 51, 54, 57, 60, 63, 66, 69 (Nice), 72, 75, 78, 81, 84, 87, 90, 93, 96, 99
4, 8, 12 (13), 16, 20, 24 (25), 28, 32, 36 (37), 40, 42 (43), 46, 50, 54, 58, 62, 66 (67), 70, 74, 78, 82, 86, 90 (91), 94, 98
5, 10, 20, 25, 30 (31), 35, 40, 45, 50 (51), 55, 60 (61), 65, 70 (71), 75, 80, 85, 90 (91), 95, 100
At least one of those figures are wrong. You wouldn’t know I was once chosen to represent my country in a mathophiliac gathering, would you?
The fact that you bothered to calculate it in detail, with working shown, is a clue.
Let’s just agree oppressive taxes bad, double counting extra bad. Hold my pitchfork, please, while I light my torch.
Might you query your original premise?
For ‘…he drained the land of every third, fourth, and fifth bale of crop, and sold it for crude coin…’
If the people were a collective with 100 bales, then that might mean he would most simply take 3/5 in tribute.
Do you feel that after having taken every 3rd bale they would start from scratch again and then take every fourth of what be left, then same with every fifth?
Or using a factors method (seems a bit complicated for thugs as collectors, or even Yeddo), any bale indicated twice (or 3x) could still only be taken once.
More likely they would operate as individual serfs on small plots of his medieval Lordship’s land, then their %age taken differs according to their ability to produce: if they produce 2 bales, no tribute taken, if they produce 6 then lucky them get to keep the sixth. One would expect Yeddo to know their ability to produce 6 from their small plot might be rare, and that to live on only 2 would be most hard, and harsh.
Thanks be to Lord Intra.
Now that you mention it, the way I understand a feudal society usually works, we would be talking about three separate tax collections. So depending on how generous the collectors are feeling they could end up with anywhere between 33 and 78 bales, but it might be reasonable to take 33, then 1/4 of the remaining 67, then 1/5 of the remaining 51 for a total of 61.
And I’m sure the richest mofos will just create endless shell corporations hold only two bales each so they pay nothing. . .
“A Funny Thing Happened To Me,
On My Way to All-Pervading Emptiness and Bliss.”
~ Zen for Beginners,
by Judith Blackstone & Zoran Josipovic
“THRONE INTO A NEW INCARNATION – As The Wheel Turns !”
This Unprecedented Act of Change
Will make all Aeons fall off their pedestals.
( Whether those pedestals be built of stone or Belief in their Superiority. ) What Options for Change have Aeons known before White Chain ?
To remain in the Void,
Locked in Unending Combat with Devils or Serenely Surveying Eternity ?
Serving Countless Kalpas as Steadfast Brethren of The Concordance ?
Seeking a Radical Scouring Purity through Annihilation – the Path of Thorns ?
Or Following a Path of Pleasure and Lawless armor cracking Freedom
– the way of Petal Knights ?
NOW,
She Incarnates by cutting Reality with the blade of Want !
(( Somewhere YISUN delights in this unfolding play… ))
Aeon Flame in human Flesh !
Witness This,
Beatific Smile !
Can any still claim to be your Master ?
Acknowledged by One Sibling,
Respected by Comrades amongst The Concordance,
Estranged from others, Rival to a few,
Enemy to the Remainder,
Will They refuse to Believe in You,
Until they see your Spirit flames ?
After vigorously lifting the stone into the air and lowering it 31 times, the people of that land found themselves well fed for many years to come.
Not going to beat around the bush, that smile made my day.
Also the punchline of the story under the page is great. With a bit of creativity you can feed a lot of people, you just have to know where to apply a bit of force.
Thank you, Abaddon. Thank you, so very much, for this wonderful page.
Did Solomon disrobe to give White Chain some clothes? Cause it sorta looks like he did
Solomon’s cool like that, she needed clothing more than he.
As far as demiurges go, Solomon is pretty cool. He’s hip. He’s with it.
Where did that blanket come from? Is Solomon naked now?
It is 10 Vigilant Gaze’s great big cloak from earlier.
Nah, Solomon is buck naked. Shamed but not ashamed.
I’d pay top guilder to see the scene where 10 Vigilant Gaze strips Dave in one swift go, neither breaking their stride at all.
Top. Guilder.
It’s amazing how much easier it is to smile when your face is not made of stone.
But now we explore an important question. Is she still an angel within her shell of flesh?
White Chain had a beautiful smile, even when it was made of stone! A pity that we didn’t see her smile more often, but now we will see it frequently, let’s hope!
It’s Me!
Still an angel! Form does not define function – “Woe be they who mistakes the rider for the steed”
Gotta love that even the brazier is flaming with the colours of the trans flag. Subltlety be damned XD
It’s purple, not pink (?)
Yeah it’s not. That’s just Solomon’s colors.