John made a special effort to channel Erica for this one, which actually confused some readers about its authorship. I usually say “just draw like you” when a new or guest artist comes on, but I applaud him for pushing outside his comfort zone now and then.

Others noticed Bandit’s daggers were not among the items resting on this rock. This was not an oversight.

The firelit nighttime setting is probably the best centerpiece for the chapter we could pick, but representing this chapter as a whole was tricky, because we were somewhat pushing past the structured approach we’d been taking. About half of this chapter would be postmortem navel-gazing, and then we’d get back to some action.