Wielder of Names 6-107
Chapter: 6
“I wasted five hours of hard fighting and a hundred and fifty of my best men bringing it down. Then it exploded.”
– General Yross of the Yellow Moon Brood, on fighting angels
Kill Six Billion Demons
Seeker of Thrones
Ingsvld, I really can’t believe you were surprised by how that turned out, buddy. You really gotta stop losing your head over these things.
Time to book a new body?
Alas poor INGSVLD. I knew him, Redeye.
Literally, figuratively and both at the same time!
YISUN DAMNIT, INGSVALD! Your head is a FIRST EDITION! The master-archivists will NOT be pleased if you get it damaged, and they won’t take “but I was accidentally near an angry angel” as an excuse! Now pull yourself together and take PROPER CARE of LIBRARY PROPERTY! Yes, your loan period is . . . extended, but it still belongs to us!
Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead!
Don’t be so sure. There are four principal actors, all “female”, unaccounted for.
No time for singing yet! She must be suitably positioned -before- the house comes down.
A year’s service in bodyguard work to the first one who retrieves INGSVLD’s head — I’ve scraps to book!
Who you gonna call? Palacebusters!
It looks like 82 White Chain took out both of the people flanking INGSVLD, but I’m not seeing him in today’s offering.
I spotted his detached head after posting this. Poor INGSVLD.
Look left and up from 82 White Chain’s right hand, in the first frame.
Also contemplate the cloaked figure just to the left of center bottom.
His body is on the lower left and his head is on the upper right. Otherwise he seems fine, tho’
His head-book is fluttering in White Chain’s wake,
I don’t think we’ll see INGSVD or harp-head again. Harp-head had his skull crushed by 6 Juggernaut Star and was tossed around by his head like a ragdoll by 6 Juggernaut Star while 6 Juggernaut Star was charging through the brigade of 108 idiots. It all comes down to AL-YIS-UN. Can she stop two pissed off Angels?
His face is without its body, just behind 82 White Chain.
The inevitable.
I call dibs on INGSVLD’s head! Many a wedding photos will find a place to call home today.
I need to find some way to profit over all this fighting over the Geas Knight’s head-…
How much would you be willing to bid for it?
Now taking bets on:
-The identity of the old man
-Our good friend White Chain’s state after this sudden… release
-The present thoughts of dear AL-YIS-UN
AL-YIS-UN does not bow to anyone.
Definitely not I. Beyond that, I got nothin’.
Irate at self. Also, unsettled at how pleasurable that was.
The fourth name of the Grand Enemy called I, which is rendered in the Ahtmili daemonscript as the remarkably difficult to pronounce “FUCK”
Rather difficult to say anything succinctly in Ahtmili.
“Fuck you in particular, and fuck everyone and everything else in the way!” This is a fun fighting style. Though perhaps a Thornier one than White Chain is comfortable with?
And speaking of discomfort, this doesn’t imply good things about wherever Juggernaut ended his own “fuck everything in the way” charge.
Who you gonna call? Angelbusters!
Whoops, looks like a certain Geas Knight lost his head there.
While Mottom has evidently decided to bring the whole damn house down over Alison’s liberation of her from the undead husband tree.
And thus, all thrones topple.
Poor Ingsvld.
Heyyy, what’s going down?
Waaaait, it’s not tilting from the force of White Chain pounding that corpse, but due to Mottom losing focus, right?
…..Wait you mean it’s not because whoever’s piloting smacked into one of the moons?
So, the Demiurge Mottom has passed; and with that, her flying palace is going to meet the world at terminal velocity.
All this sad, but not unexpected.
But what happens to her Key? Does one of the Fools steal it from the passed queen’s forehead? Does a dedicated scavenger find it in the ruins sometime later? Do the angels take it to create a new ally for their cause, or…
Is this why Mathangi is absent from fighting? Can Mathangi indeed not just kill the goddess, but topple her throne, destroy the key?
And the
shoepalace starts to drop….I assume bug-face was the one with the Ultimate Spear. Pity that INGSVLD was still in the way…. But poor White Chain doesn’t even get a victory dance.
“Those who are first, are still last until someone follows them.”
Ah, sister-sister has found her most primal emotion. I wondered as to where that went.
Apparently it had been stowed inside a fine teacup.
You are referring to sorrow I presume?
Before you disagree, cast your mind upon the tears that fell from the face of YISUN undivided as endless circular existence was contemplated and rejected.
Sorrow and Rage are closely linked. Both involve a desire for different outcome, and one easily becomes the other.
It is a glorious day for 82.
The boss of the area has been defeated; the timed escape sequence follows. Such is the way of the world.
“We know how to take ’em out General!”
“Get on the wire to every squadron in the world. Tell them how to take those sons of b****es down.”
I’m sorry, the last panel reminded of that scene.
Whoot!
Now we find out whether the Rising King can pick up what the Blood Flower has put down.
Broadly – and especially with the stench of blood in the nostrils – my preference is for natural meat. The rawer the better. But it has long been a dream to cook with the tears of angels.
Oh dear, it looks like our good friend INGSVLD lost his head again…
How does it feel to be the second person to post that pun?
Yeah, he really needs to pull himself together.
how does it feel to know that you are the second person to… post that… oh.
I call dibs on INGSVLD’s head. Many a wedding photo shall find a place to call home today!
If you’ll investigate the most recent logs previous to this one, you’ll see that I myself have already asked INGSVLD for scrapbook permission; to usurp me would be uncouth, and would violate the charter of the Scrapbooker’s Guild, besides.
Ho brother! In truth my claim was merely a ruse. I care not for the fools head! My intention was merely to provoke a deviant such as yourself – for you see – I am a great student of the art of dismemberment and I wish to hone my skill.
That floating palace is looking a mite unsteady.
Also, not sure who the old man with the cane is.
Don’t be silly. That is the unending palace of of the Glorious Goddess Eternal, greatest of the seven. It Does Not Tip. Our planet is simply stepping aside in reverence.
– Old man of great faith to young man now fled
Mister Bug-eyes has been splatted.
How unfortunate.
Did white chain just punch a guy to death so hard that they caused the whole city to list…
Come now, Ingsvld, don’t lose your head.
Come now, Ingsvld, don’t lose your head.
It seems White Chain has finally figured out why the Prayer is outmoded.
It’s a nice sentiment, but no one really cared about it to begin with.
Great. Just great. Do you have any idea how much of a pain it is to deal with this when it happens? It’s a total mess, it’s going to take forever to get reunited, and it’ll be days before I get myself realigned just right.
On the plus side, I did not just get rendered down into warrior sauce, unlike Uktulkti there, but still. It’s the principle of the thing.
Bookkeeping has never been your strong suit.
Do not fear, Geas Knight, perhaps on my way out I will be able to retrieve your head for you.
I admire your perseverance in the face of decapitation. Most people just give up when that happens.
There are indeed worse fates, dear INGSVLD. A maid could mistake you for a discarded book of recipes and consign you to a kitchen shelf, wedged between such delightful company as How To Cook For A Demiurge And Keep Your Life and 1000 Rat Meat Recipies From The Furnace!
My sympathies, Knight. I too have spent time decapitated. Thanks to the remarkable properties of Trow physiology, I was cursed to spend some time as a ten pedes tall granite and marble head upon an admittedly pleasant beach.
It was only a matter of time before some lesser species, in the form of stunted, orange furred ape-men, came to worship the monolithic talking head, despite being completely unable to differentiate between my fruitless demands to retrieve my constituent body-parts, scattered through a crater a few miles away, and the garbled insistence of their recently dishonoured shaman who claimed my visage was a gift from their gods.
The ensuing bloody civil theological war was briefly interrupted by my comrades, Decius Marcus Tullius and Lucius Titus Flavius, having reclaimed much of my discarded body parts and restored them to a functioning vessel. While such an embarrassing situation is hardly something any sensible and thoughtful being would wish on anyone, save their truest enemies or truest friends, I do hope your rescue is far more timely and much less involved in the holy rituals of pygmies.
Hey now, Ingsvld, don’t lose your head.
Well, that certainly was a hard blow, if it’s tilting the whole palace.
Its always struck me how angels manage to seem both more and less human when they’re covered in blood.
Let’s see if I can come up with something original in regards to the soon-to-be-jokes involving Ingsvld…
White Chain knocked his block off!
…No? Knocked his book off? …Feh. Not going to stoop to puns, here.
No! Stoop to puns! They are the second lowest form of comedy and therefore nigh-universal!
The lowest and most universal of all comedy is, of course, slapstick, being violence and all.
The universal form of comedy is life. I have to stifle a chuckle just -thinking- about it.
“Aslan! Aslan! Have I made the first joke? Will everybody always be told how I made the first joke?”
“No, little friend,” said the Lion. “You have not made the first joke; you have only been the first joke.” Then everyone laughed more than ever; but the Jackdaw didn’t mind and laughed just as loud till the horse shook its head and the Jackdaw lost its balance and fell off, but remembered its wings (they were still new to it) before it reached the ground.
The Magician’s Nephew, C. S. Lewis
Generals are pompous fools who send swaths of weaklings to die in their stead; a true warrior of divine providence or absolute foolhardy courage could have stop that angel in half the time with only 236 broken bones to account for.
Yross, the magnificent bastard,, was right to say wasted when recounting his tale.
The power of fury is a false one. It is a power that reins you to its own end, rather than it to yours.
Power is not power at all that cannot be ruled.
Let’s bring the house DOWN!
Looks like the angels…
*procures tinted spectacles*
crashed the party.
SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYEAAAAAAH
Don’t lose your head, Ingsvld.
Once, many reincarnations ago, I was awaiting a company of mercenaries I had offended on an old bridge. The night was long and dull, so I distracted myself by catching some bream to offer at a local shrine. All of a sudden, a pike-perch came leaping out of the water and landed in the milk pail I kept my fish in. It made itself quite comfortable between the bream and ate a small roach I had kept to use as bait.
“How fortuitous for me,” said I.
“Fortuitous, nothing! It’s by my own design I’ve ended up in your bucket,” said the pike-perch, “for a terrible realisation has overcome me. All my life I’ve lived happily in this small stream, gorging myself and biting all about me even when I wasn’t hungry. Only mere minutes ago I was so terribly startled that I could no longer bear to live in this river.”
“Why so?” I asked, for I was more ignorant than I am now in those days.
“After I snapped up the so-manieth roach this night,” the pike-perch confided in me, “I realised all fish in this water have to share it with a terrible, frightening beast.”
What was the name of this beast, do you think, fellow witnesses?
A sturgeon? Perhaps a dragon-carp?
Were it only so that this were my house, that you could leave it.
The beast called I
10 Juggernaut is learned, but are they wise?
Probably my sibling Brechud-Argohsti Voul, The Virulent.
Little fucker never learned to stop shitting in rivers like a madman.
I am truly beyond words.
I have been known to occasionally drink water so I must ask; does your sibling limit themselves to rivers? Or are creeks and streams likewise imperiled?
It is moments like this that I am glad I do not require water.
Time.
I would not fertilise a barren field with the ashes of a fool like you. Begone at once.
The pike-perch itself, in a horrifying moment of self awareness.
Jhorne is observant. Horrifying, indeed, that even a true beast of the land can not bear itself to be a Beast such as is needed first to become Royalty.
Carry with you the sixth syllable always, as I do, and you will never be without home, never hungry, and never ashamed.
I compliment you on your retention of the sixth syllable and would like to ask about the mercenary company that you offended; not the nature of the offense, for that is between you, them and the multiverse.
Rather, I’d like to know of the resolution of the encounter, if one occurred.
It is hunger, dear Aeon.
This is a good guess from my cousin-Inheritor. But consider that the pike-perch is a fish also, and never hungered for its beastly ways, and also that hunger is a thing of mortals that angels pay little thought to.
The beastliness of the self is, though, as 82 is discovering, this being the point of the riddle.
That beast surely is water, for there is no greater beast than the environment you live in. It is a cage you cannot leave without dying.
Consider: a cage is not a cage unless one is fearful of breaking locks.
Shall the Imperatrix come and bathe them all in a fitful final nova of wrath? Mottom deserves no natural death, like the withering of a flower. She has unnaturally gorged herself, and so should, likewise, unnaturally resist death. Curses upon the Orange Queen. Curses upon her Swollen Throne.
Let none bear the curse of withering. The nature of Glory is to burn~
INGSVLD, please don’t
lose your head again
The Rage
Bursting through lives
Consuming all you touch
Fire quenched in blood
Desolation
Tears of molten flame
Godly sorrow
No time for healing
buried by necessity
Alas
Here we go
Angel fire burns hot as all, but there are rules.
That’s what Tony said before John killed him.
That’s what my Captain keeps telling me.
INGSVLD has been parted from his head once again, they do seem to be a precious commodity in throne these days.
A worm wonders at what fresh rot will be spilled with this giant stumble. Worms always get around to this giant or the other. Sometimes it just takes longer.
Fresh rot. What an intriguing paradox.
Rip and tear.
*slow clap*
Oh yeah. Mottom kept it floating, and now she’s finna bout to die.
Also was that a “dash through the crowd while hitting everyone” move? Because if so, I dig it. I dig it a lot.
It seems that White Chain favors the Pummeling Charge monk build. Do not weep, good cousin! Leave that to the Game Master, whose lovingly-crafted final boss you slew in one round with 18d10+234 damage.
And this is why you never play games with Angels, nobody knows how to rules-lawyer better than they. Not to mention that they’re all power-gamers.
There is no shame in accomplishing objectives in the most optimal manner possible, particularly if it abides by the Law. At least, that’s what I told the last four groups as they were banishing me from their gaming circles.
Ingsvld, nooo! Quick, someone grab his head!
…although I’m gonna guess that if White Chain goes prompt critical in the same room as you, it doesn’t matter whether you have your head on or not.
Someone’s stressed.
This is going to end in fire.
Some say it will end in ice…
Ingsvild noooooo!!!!
Pree Ashma, Yis-Asram the Blooded One. Yis-Prama, Hansa, and Prat Pavam who Tempered my Heart. Yisun Atru Vyam. I have inflicted violence, but there is no forgiveness to be had.
Now that’s what I call body surfing!
Now that the palace is falling, we’ll see if Alison can save that tiny villaige from being crushed underneath. I guess that’s better than it falling after she leaves.
Caskets made of sand…….
“They explode? They EXPLODE!!!”
-Astrid Hofferson.
Being forcibly shunted into the void is, indeed, not a subtle process.
Way to lose your head, Ingsvld
Now, be it as it may, is a good time to make sure you are not in the shadow of the large falling palace.
And so an empire falls in the most literal way possible.
I fear though, that with the balance of power disrupted so, Jagganoth’s wrath may approach quicker then was expected.
Beware of the bare fisted monk for thou they may be kind and respectful should you anger one be prepared for a palm strike through the heart.
This is why this fool never saw the appeal of any floating structures that aren’t ships, every time you produce one the wheel laughs at you and it crashes into the ground before exploding. But they always make excellent realm shattering booms when they crash so that makes up for it.
To be fair, ships are known to crash just as often. Indeed, it is the fate of all things that fly to fall-… And then explode.
Proper footing is the first and most important part of the martial arts. It is your source, your anvil, and your surest partner. When footing is lost, so is the fight. It is for this reason that I advise all students who will fight in the cities to study architecture, and all who will roam the wilds study geology.
Perhaps the greatest of my students will abandon the study of violence, and work with brick, mortar, and earth, instead.
– from the teachings of Mon Priaya, Master of the Epiphany Fist, and noted rock collector.
The esteemed Mon Praya hits on important truth: There is nothing quite as predictable as a martial artist on a ballistic arc.
Don’t aim at where they are, aim at where they are going to be. You will hit every time.
— Commentary on the Classics
Quick, grab that book before he can reattach it!
Ideally also before the castle crashes and everyone dies.
wow. That’s…wow
This is the part where we all make airplane noises and careen to one side.
Wheooooooooooooooooooosh!
Such whimsy!
As I said when all this began, it would not be the first time a knight of the Geas lost his head, nor would it be the last.
It is a shame I could not be the one to remove it.
Will you two just kiss, already? Everyone can see it.
Lewd.
Came here for the badass fights and demiurges, stayed for the gay subtext.
Woah! Letting out some monk funk, way to subdue some evil.
Thank you for flying Mottom Air. We will be landing shortly.
Incoming!
That is honestly my favorite thing I’ve seen after a comic. It reflects well on angels
Why INGSVLD you seem to have once again lost your head in battle. I do so hope you can find it before everything comes crashing down around you. That being said, perhaps our lovely angel has lost something a bit more important than her head, She seems to have lost her temper. I wonder if she knows a prayer to regain it.
Give them a hand, folks.
A bloody red one.
That’s not the Geas Knight’s head, is it?
Who is that standing there at the bottom left?
An instant of violence followed by a moment of regret. Even angels have their own inner demons.
Perhaps helping her allies conquer those demons is the deed for which Pree Alison earns her royal name.
Teacups make an excellent allegory for power now that I think of it. Fragile and beautiful things forged from bone and fire. And whose shattering brings forth rivers of violence.
In this way tea parties make excellent allegories for the path of true royalty.
Vm ittr a vsk pret
She has no eyes. I guess the whole ripping off your face thing has consequences.
from whence come the tears?
The wings and the hair are full of eyes. An angel cannot hide its deeds from its own conscience. It sees too much. The fire of pure law that beats within convicts them for the slightest misstep.
Everybody run! There’s at least two pissed off angels on board!
Also the palace is falling. That’s probably also a bad thing.
Huh. I would have assumed the city would stay up until Mottom died. Surely she hasn’t aged to death already, or she never would have survived the trip to meet with the other Demiurges.
I suspect the Terrible Mottom is writhing in terror of her approaching demise. She is likely letting the palace drop deliberately, conserving her last dregs of energy, and utterly uncaring of the thousands she will murder in her selfishness.
I truly hope the Nascent Godking can master her grasp of this situation and do something to save Mottom’s Palace. Most of the residents are steeped in wickedness and removing them from the world a blessing, but a more measured slaughter might be a good thing to attempt.
At the very least, trying to miss the village would be a good thing.
The castle is held up by Moton’s will alone. Some people don’t quite die all at once.
Mottom is dead and Mathangi is conspicuously absent from combat.
Who gets the power now?
No, the Palace is held up by Mottom’s Will, not her life.
Plainly, Mottom just gave up. Now we’ll all suffer the consequences.
The palace is held up by force of her will, which it seems has been broken.
Maybe she’s decided to let it drop to conserve energy?
Is the angel’s armor healed by much violence or by a little time?
Well shit…
Alice-un is trapped by destiny–she’ll be fine. I hope Layla will be OK after whatever’s about to go down descends.
Hell hath no fury like a goddess bereaved.
They’re going to be vacuuming chunks of angel out of the carpet for weeks.
Don’t deny it; you’re a Thorn through and through, White Chain.
You’re a Thorn Knight, 82
you really are a fool~
You’re as angry as a mammoth,
you’re as stubborn as a mule, 82~
I wouldn’t touch you with a thirty nine and a half foot pole.
(After all looked at what happened to spear guy)
I think the implication in the first picture is that she’s moving at supersonic speed, with what all the mirrors shattering from the boom.
Or maybe that’s just symbolic too.
Wherefore might young Allison be in the midst of this carnage? 82 White Chain, have you forgotten your purpose here while under the thrall of vengeful bloodlust? Perhaps you should hurry before 6 Jagganoth is rendered 7 by your quarry. Or, perhaps you should wait and rescue her *after* she unleashes the 23rd Division, at least your armor will still be intact.
Inevitable mad dash insues?
Maybe our Ministry will get lucky and the palace will bury every last trace of this mess.
BTW at the end of US civil war many of the Southerners never fully surrendered and we are still dealing with those problems 150+ years later.
THAT CANNOT BE GOOD.
Something has just occurred to me: What happens to Mottom’s Lesser Key when she dies? If it’s lost in the wreckage, that will be a problem when somebody digs it back up. But if it automatically returns to merge with the Key of Kings… Allison is about to get a significant power boost.
One red fist to ruin a soul. One tear for a loss of purpose. One focus for the love of a woman.
3 reasons to die.
3 reasons to fight.
3 reasons to flee.
A pity about INGSVLD. We are fond of his centralized oculus.
Though he may have lost his head, one can certainly not accuse him of lacking a spine.
There’s a lot of these -oss names, have there been any hints I’ve missed as to what it might mean?