Nay, ’tis a most apposite slip of the tongue. For if one has studied the sorry tale of Pree Aeshma deeply, one will see that no matter how deep a friendship, there exists a deeper revelation, which, should it be revealed, will shatter that friendship.
Divulge can mean to reveal or make know. So our heroes appeared to be on the same journey until their true paths were made known. Implying that his hearts part is different from hers
No, her orders were to have her body fed to the dogs outside the city. Dogs and jackals are different in ways that farmers and sword wielders are different, and the latter is unlikely to reside near a city, save perhaps if corpses are common at the perimeter.
Given what happened to Solomon’s teachers, it seems being the martial arts instructor of a future demiurge is _generally_ dangerous. Perhaps White Chain should take out some insurance.
… I could swear previously that Meti’s Sword Manual stated she took only one student…
Perhaps a transcription error? Or perhaps my memory is flawed. Probably the latter, for I am as forgetful as I am forgettable.
But I do agree that the sword is a poison. Tis why I greatly prefer the club and shield, and practice a few styles that specifically break swords (and sword wielders), but then alcohol is also a poison that is regularly consumed in small quantities. Life itself is a poison, and when you’ve consumed too much you die. Let the one who would call you master feed off the poison of the sword, at least you can teach this one to control their intake.
Meti may have only considered one of them a student. Incubus shaved his head. Incubus fed her dead body to the dogs like she said to. The pattern being laid out is that Incubus actually listens to Meti, while Maya fights back against what she says.
Maya may have just stuck around and tried to follow the lessons while Meti taught Incubus.
“my only apprentice is an idiot speck of a girl with more talent for eating than skill with the blade”
“My extreme hope is that some measure of wisdom will penetrate the thick skull of my apprentice. If not, may reading this manual demonstrate your powerful disinterest in it, and may its true value die with me.”
It does not appear that incubus is the one referred to as her Only Apprentice.
Incubus was an excellent student, in sword law. But the Mantra girl was far more of an apprentice than he, for she learned all the lessons Meti had to teach.
maybe I’m missing something, why doesn’t everybody assume incubus is the other sword apprentice?
could it not be the white-haired sword master previously seen face off against the gunwitch?
there is also a panel where he says “all of you can stop following me” and the next panel is of the lady above, with the gem in her head shining. is that not foreshadowing of her following him as the student?
There are no words better spoken than these. One must be careful that he does not drink of life too deeply. Life is indeed terminal. The sword like any other poison must be taken in moderation with meditation and honing the mind.
Perhaps at the time she wrote those words, she no longer considered her first student to be her apprentice.
And perhaps being rejected as apprentice, despite having sacrificed his hair and the integrity of his scalp, was an injury to his pride deep enough to be motive for murder?
8255 Invincible Guardian Repels the Sinners Without Fail
But Maya would have them dead, and their thrones toppled with them! She has cut herself from the gods thinking her hatred so strong it could never be remitted. But she will never be free of them. That very hatred will pull her violently back into contact with them. There is hope she will choose the easy way, but, one way or another this division will be healed.
Alternatively she may have written the manual before Incubus came around. She constantly disparages Maya in the flashbacks and we see the same attitude towards her student in the manual. Maya is also quite an adult by the time Incubus comes around.
There are no words better spoken than these. One must be careful that he does not drink of life too deeply. Life is indeed terminal. The sword like any other poison must be taken in moderation with meditation and honing the mind.
Sorry I gotta butt in and say the loose hairs framing her face in the last couple panels are such a neat detail and I love it. a lot of people don’t bother with that kind of thing (mostly because it takes time) but also because they’re not used to drawing kinkier and more natural hair grades and that’s just such a cool thing to see, so uh? thanks!
The archiving system here is incredibly obtuse, and there’s nothing labelled by date or chapter as “3-22” – can you describe it by plot so I can try to narrow down?
The Hegemonic Prince of Moths; Savala Thun, Grand Duke of the Night District, Guild Master of the Opaline, Blood Royal of House Thun, First Facet of the Ma’grēti Dynasty and Sovereign of the Endless Dream
To have an apprentice is to admit inevitable defeat. The act of teaching is dangerous because it gives those being taught the desire to surpass and discard. Personally, I would much rather leave my subordinates questioning everything. The only one I teach is myself.
If you would teach yourself, what do you do with those selves you have surpassed?
If you must have your ‘self’, then it is better by far to destroy that which you have surpassed.
To discard an old self is to leave it for others to take.
The Hegemonic Prince of Moths; Savala Thun, Grand Duke of the Night District, Guild Master of the Opaline, Blood Royal of House Thun, First Facet of the Ma’grēti Dynasty and Sovereign of the Endless Dream
The Hegemonic Prince of Moths; Savala Thun, Grand Duke of the Night District, Guild Master of the Opaline, Blood Royal of House Thun, First Facet of the Ma’grēti Dynasty and Sovereign of the Endless Dream
Speaking of which, what size are the windows in your eyries? Your successors will no doubt want to redecorate once they find your corpse within, entombed at the height of your own power and terror of being shaped by another both, and it pays to have the appropriate lengths of material on hand ahead of time.
Meti *is* basically Diogenes with tits and a sword.
Still, it’s interesting that Incubus seems to have earnestly followed her desires while Maya rebuked her at every turn, by Maya seems to have gotten the credit as the true heir while Incubus, as per usual, is seen as an Usurper. It makes me wonder how many of his accolades he’s actually earned.
Although bear in mind that Maya has almost certainly little-to-no formal education outside of being mentored by Meti. She was a noodle-vendor’s daughter and then Meti’s apprentice.
It would be nice to see the first panel in higher resolution. Shrines of Hansa, Het (presumably), some other unidentified deities: trees, clouds and a dolo monkey. Gorgeous.
Just saying, I know he looks like Incubus, acts like Incubus and all that, but this somehow doesn’t seem to fit with all the disrespect Incubus keeps getting. Could this guy she is talking about be Incubus Father? If they left each other after an argument…Like how to treat a dead master…why should Meti give him anything? But a son of them both would make for someone to inherit a key, and someone who has not earned it, so can be disrespected.
Love the Temple setting, the view, the Effigy, bell, and winding flowering tree.
If Maya did not leave Throne after the fall of the Fortress of Yre, then she’s visiting a part of the Red City we’ve not seen before. Where is this ?
Somewhere there is a mountainside where one may find temples built to honor the gods and perhaps Ascended Masters / Immortals.
I’m guessing we see here a Temple to Ys-Pree-Ashma a.k.a. Aesma.
This is stupid, Incubus is having self respect issues because the other demiurges said he doesn’t actually belong on The Seven, instead of Maya. Meanwhile he was the first one who Meti Ten Ryo acknowledged as a student for his will before Maya. Maya doesn’t even covet the throne it seems, and instead pass it on to him, and as a fellow disciple of Meti, and not to mention her first student, he should be confident enough that he can back up his claim to that throne, Instead of having a hissy fit when the others mock him for it.
He’s not going to be any better of a student than Maya *and* he’s going to kill her *and* he’s going to achieve his position (which Maya won by force) by tricking Maya and or some other unimpressive means. We don’t know how any of these things will happen but nothing here contradicts or even strains at known events.
Consider, young pree, that by that word are hearths made cold and cities emptied- armies felled, and kings toppled. By Should are legends forged, and tyrants cast down, that new tyrants might be raised up in their places. In Should you behold the harbinger of that most dread of blades, the Blade of Want, whose remit is Separation, and against whom no bulwark can stand.
And yet, for all that potency, Should ever remains the sullen, furious shadow of her hated sister.
Is.
Do not seek to outrun the Grand Enemy, my lovely Pree. You will find she has always beats you to your destination.
Yes, yes very astute inputs, fellow observers. I guess my frustrations against such archetypes begat from similar observations across other realities, universes and stories, rooting some personages from advancement due to the circumstances. I guess we should just see where this one takes us.
Only for the Demiurges, who are all basically Sith Lords.
Also: Mammon killed his family, and Nadia Om killed her husband (who was likely her mentor, too). There very well might be similar stories for Jadis, Gog-Agog, and Jagganoth. One does not get to the top without being rather murderous.
There have been hints that White Chains duty to 2-Michael will come into conflict with her friendship with Allison. (KOS 3-33). If so, then it is possible that the pattern you cite will continue and Allison will kill her mentor White Chain, probably with White Chains blessing.
Alternatively, White Chain might kill her mentor 2-Michael but considering how lawful she is, that is less likely.
If Allison manage to prove that she is indeed Kill Six Billion Demons, rightful heir to the throne of Zoss, White Chain could be persuaded that 2-Michael is wrong and must be disobeyed. It would be quite surprising, but not impossible.
Wait this fool may be massively misremembering but didn’t the old master wish for her body to be thrown away and fed to dogs? Seems to me incubus did what she wanted him to do and this one is so to attached to her dead master. But then again very few students with actual talent can stand their master dying or being killed.
What practical apparel Maya’s not-apprentice wears. As the old proverb says, “He who carries his noodle-bowl on his head will never fear hunger nor thirst.”
Our paths “diverged”?
Nay, ’tis a most apposite slip of the tongue. For if one has studied the sorry tale of Pree Aeshma deeply, one will see that no matter how deep a friendship, there exists a deeper revelation, which, should it be revealed, will shatter that friendship.
That’s a huge stretch. I’ll still either consider it a typo or if you’re right, it’s bad sentence structure.
I second this. As 501 Paths said below, paths diverge (to separate), they don’t divulge (to reveal).
This is definitely a typo.
so called “mistakes” in this comic have been altered after their revelation to us in the past. “Divulge” endures here.
They most likely diverged.
One pot of hot noodles to Graeme !
Good eye !
Divulge can mean to reveal or make know. So our heroes appeared to be on the same journey until their true paths were made known. Implying that his hearts part is different from hers
Appropriate that such a jackal would use dogs as his tools.
Yet you forget that such were Meti’s orders
No, her orders were to have her body fed to the dogs outside the city. Dogs and jackals are different in ways that farmers and sword wielders are different, and the latter is unlikely to reside near a city, save perhaps if corpses are common at the perimeter.
I do not forget, Brother. I merely comment on the propriety.
Do you think killing her was part of her orders too?
It wouldn’t surprise me if they had been. Meti does seem perverse and unafraid enough to have done so.
But it also wouldn’t surprise me if he had simply murdered her.
One might suppose that, amidst the masters and students of sword law, such orders come implicit.
Perhaps that is why Maya refuses to refer to her companion as her student. Sword law is poison to all who hew to it.
Given what happened to Solomon’s teachers, it seems being the martial arts instructor of a future demiurge is _generally_ dangerous. Perhaps White Chain should take out some insurance.
… I could swear previously that Meti’s Sword Manual stated she took only one student…
Perhaps a transcription error? Or perhaps my memory is flawed. Probably the latter, for I am as forgetful as I am forgettable.
But I do agree that the sword is a poison. Tis why I greatly prefer the club and shield, and practice a few styles that specifically break swords (and sword wielders), but then alcohol is also a poison that is regularly consumed in small quantities. Life itself is a poison, and when you’ve consumed too much you die. Let the one who would call you master feed off the poison of the sword, at least you can teach this one to control their intake.
Meti may have only considered one of them a student. Incubus shaved his head. Incubus fed her dead body to the dogs like she said to. The pattern being laid out is that Incubus actually listens to Meti, while Maya fights back against what she says.
Maya may have just stuck around and tried to follow the lessons while Meti taught Incubus.
Self taught is better anyway
“my only apprentice is an idiot speck of a girl with more talent for eating than skill with the blade”
“My extreme hope is that some measure of wisdom will penetrate the thick skull of my apprentice. If not, may reading this manual demonstrate your powerful disinterest in it, and may its true value die with me.”
It does not appear that incubus is the one referred to as her Only Apprentice.
Incubus was an excellent student, in sword law. But the Mantra girl was far more of an apprentice than he, for she learned all the lessons Meti had to teach.
So says Truth.
maybe I’m missing something, why doesn’t everybody assume incubus is the other sword apprentice?
could it not be the white-haired sword master previously seen face off against the gunwitch?
there is also a panel where he says “all of you can stop following me” and the next panel is of the lady above, with the gem in her head shining. is that not foreshadowing of her following him as the student?
There are no words better spoken than these. One must be careful that he does not drink of life too deeply. Life is indeed terminal. The sword like any other poison must be taken in moderation with meditation and honing the mind.
Perhaps at the time she wrote those words, she no longer considered her first student to be her apprentice.
And perhaps being rejected as apprentice, despite having sacrificed his hair and the integrity of his scalp, was an injury to his pride deep enough to be motive for murder?
History is written by the victors, or gods in this case
But Maya would have them dead, and their thrones toppled with them! She has cut herself from the gods thinking her hatred so strong it could never be remitted. But she will never be free of them. That very hatred will pull her violently back into contact with them. There is hope she will choose the easy way, but, one way or another this division will be healed.
Meti’s manual states that she has only one student, but Incubus might not be her student anymore at that time.
Alternatively she may have written the manual before Incubus came around. She constantly disparages Maya in the flashbacks and we see the same attitude towards her student in the manual. Maya is also quite an adult by the time Incubus comes around.
There are no words better spoken than these. One must be careful that he does not drink of life too deeply. Life is indeed terminal. The sword like any other poison must be taken in moderation with meditation and honing the mind.
Incubus probably gave Meti a stick to use.
Sorry I gotta butt in and say the loose hairs framing her face in the last couple panels are such a neat detail and I love it. a lot of people don’t bother with that kind of thing (mostly because it takes time) but also because they’re not used to drawing kinkier and more natural hair grades and that’s just such a cool thing to see, so uh? thanks!
also go back the lancer Kickstarter! I am!
New Character!
She isn’t new. She just doesn’t look like a samurai bug without her helmet.
Who? One of the pursuers wore a helmet for some time, but this one doesn’t look like her.
The swordswoman on 3-22 who seemed very impressed with her.
The archiving system here is incredibly obtuse, and there’s nothing labelled by date or chapter as “3-22” – can you describe it by plot so I can try to narrow down?
Book 3: 3(6)
Yeah, I thought you meant that one. I still don’t think they look alike, though. Even the sword looks different.
I think this is still a flashback, maybe.
You gotta unbind yourself in the 4th dimension.
Sounds like something Incubus would do
To have an apprentice is to admit inevitable defeat. The act of teaching is dangerous because it gives those being taught the desire to surpass and discard. Personally, I would much rather leave my subordinates questioning everything. The only one I teach is myself.
If you would teach yourself, what do you do with those selves you have surpassed?
If you must have your ‘self’, then it is better by far to destroy that which you have surpassed.
To discard an old self is to leave it for others to take.
Why I eat them of course. For I am infinite and ever-expanding, the ‘self’ that I ascend from is endlessly consumed.
So you’re a lesser version of Our Lady of Worms.
Our Courts intermingle and she is a client of the Opaline
Consider the Tower, Preem Thun.
Speaking of which, what size are the windows in your eyries? Your successors will no doubt want to redecorate once they find your corpse within, entombed at the height of your own power and terror of being shaped by another both, and it pays to have the appropriate lengths of material on hand ahead of time.
Judging from the alt-text a few pages back, Meti herself didn’t mind the part where her torn corpse was consumed by dogs.
Just like Diogenes.
Meti *is* basically Diogenes with tits and a sword.
Still, it’s interesting that Incubus seems to have earnestly followed her desires while Maya rebuked her at every turn, by Maya seems to have gotten the credit as the true heir while Incubus, as per usual, is seen as an Usurper. It makes me wonder how many of his accolades he’s actually earned.
Maybe perhaps that is the point:
Maya defied Meti’s instructions.
Incubus slavishly heeded every one of Meti’s instructions.
Foolish as she was, Metic may have ultimately respected Maya’s stubborn nature more.
Hey, Diogenes had a sword. He often polished it in public.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Oh Sweet Shadow Moses, I’ve never been more ecstatic to partake of such grim tidings!
I do hope those dogs choked and perished, though!
Paths diverge.
Secrets are divulged.
Words are dumb.
And as long as I’m nitpicking: “We were close, he and I,”
Although bear in mind that Maya has almost certainly little-to-no formal education outside of being mentored by Meti. She was a noodle-vendor’s daughter and then Meti’s apprentice.
Also, she favors the gape.
Yes, that fruit. The gape.
We have our slips of the tongue, us drankers.
Goooood. Let the hate flow through you!
It would be nice to see the first panel in higher resolution. Shrines of Hansa, Het (presumably), some other unidentified deities: trees, clouds and a dolo monkey. Gorgeous.
Just saying, I know he looks like Incubus, acts like Incubus and all that, but this somehow doesn’t seem to fit with all the disrespect Incubus keeps getting. Could this guy she is talking about be Incubus Father? If they left each other after an argument…Like how to treat a dead master…why should Meti give him anything? But a son of them both would make for someone to inherit a key, and someone who has not earned it, so can be disrespected.
So Maya has a jewel on the forehead, just like Cio. Maybe she inherited a key from Meti, which was then stolen by Incubus, thus making him an usurper?
A LOT of “sorcerers”/users of red magic have the red gem in their forehead, and they obviously don’t all have keys.
She almost certainly did lose both her position as one of the Seven and her key to Incubus.
I wonder if they gave each other those badass scars…
Fantastic view !
Love the Temple setting, the view, the Effigy, bell, and winding flowering tree.
If Maya did not leave Throne after the fall of the Fortress of Yre, then she’s visiting a part of the Red City we’ve not seen before. Where is this ?
Somewhere there is a mountainside where one may find temples built to honor the gods and perhaps Ascended Masters / Immortals.
I’m guessing we see here a Temple to Ys-Pree-Ashma a.k.a. Aesma.
Eyes are wet and low lip shakes
Fire flickers shadow snakes
Wax comes off my head in flakes
MURDER THE GODS AND TOPPLE THEIR T H R O N E S
This is stupid, Incubus is having self respect issues because the other demiurges said he doesn’t actually belong on The Seven, instead of Maya. Meanwhile he was the first one who Meti Ten Ryo acknowledged as a student for his will before Maya. Maya doesn’t even covet the throne it seems, and instead pass it on to him, and as a fellow disciple of Meti, and not to mention her first student, he should be confident enough that he can back up his claim to that throne, Instead of having a hissy fit when the others mock him for it.
He’s not going to be any better of a student than Maya *and* he’s going to kill her *and* he’s going to achieve his position (which Maya won by force) by tricking Maya and or some other unimpressive means. We don’t know how any of these things will happen but nothing here contradicts or even strains at known events.
By “kill her” I mean Meti, even though it looks like I meant Maya.
Such a potent word, “should.”
Consider, young pree, that by that word are hearths made cold and cities emptied- armies felled, and kings toppled. By Should are legends forged, and tyrants cast down, that new tyrants might be raised up in their places. In Should you behold the harbinger of that most dread of blades, the Blade of Want, whose remit is Separation, and against whom no bulwark can stand.
And yet, for all that potency, Should ever remains the sullen, furious shadow of her hated sister.
Is.
Do not seek to outrun the Grand Enemy, my lovely Pree. You will find she has always beats you to your destination.
Self-esteem issues are rarely so logical.
To cut himself into the form of the King of Swords, a man must hate himself more than he hates the entire world.
Yes, yes very astute inputs, fellow observers. I guess my frustrations against such archetypes begat from similar observations across other realities, universes and stories, rooting some personages from advancement due to the circumstances. I guess we should just see where this one takes us.
And considering the nature of Incubus, he probably stabbed her in the back.
Solomon-David killed his mentor, Incubus killed his mentor, …jeez it feels like someone really has it in for teachers in this setting.
Only for the Demiurges, who are all basically Sith Lords.
Also: Mammon killed his family, and Nadia Om killed her husband (who was likely her mentor, too). There very well might be similar stories for Jadis, Gog-Agog, and Jagganoth. One does not get to the top without being rather murderous.
Jadis kills her dad iirc
There have been hints that White Chains duty to 2-Michael will come into conflict with her friendship with Allison. (KOS 3-33). If so, then it is possible that the pattern you cite will continue and Allison will kill her mentor White Chain, probably with White Chains blessing.
Alternatively, White Chain might kill her mentor 2-Michael but considering how lawful she is, that is less likely.
If Allison manage to prove that she is indeed Kill Six Billion Demons, rightful heir to the throne of Zoss, White Chain could be persuaded that 2-Michael is wrong and must be disobeyed. It would be quite surprising, but not impossible.
Cycles spin and do not break
first consume then defecate
or do as you will and make
EYES OF FLAME
what a good student, the dogs guy is
Wait this fool may be massively misremembering but didn’t the old master wish for her body to be thrown away and fed to dogs? Seems to me incubus did what she wanted him to do and this one is so to attached to her dead master. But then again very few students with actual talent can stand their master dying or being killed.
What practical apparel Maya’s not-apprentice wears. As the old proverb says, “He who carries his noodle-bowl on his head will never fear hunger nor thirst.”