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Annotations Every Day - Written by T Campbell & Flo Kahn - Illustrated by John & Jason Waltrip

See, this is why other cultists wear track suits.

Chapter 16 – Page 7

on April 13, 2012
Chapter: Chapter 16
└ Tags: Byron, Cultists
Comments RSS

Discussion (70) ¬

  1. alicemacher
    alicemacher
    April 13, 2012, 12:09 am | # | Reply

    YES. Byron rocks so hard.

    • flevine
      flevine
      April 13, 2012, 6:59 am | # | Reply

      Awesome. Feeling a little vindicated over the past few chapters since I’d speculated he’d been purposefully holding himself back because he was afraid of what would happen if he didn’t–sticking to “pussified fights,” as Frigg put it.

      I love it when you guys do fight scenes!

    • Syncline
      Syncline
      April 13, 2012, 9:01 am | # | Reply

      Free at last, free at last, say hi to your god for me, free at last!

      • belam
        belam
        April 14, 2012, 2:21 am | # | Reply

        that made me laugh a lot harder than it should have XD

    • Hawk
      Hawk
      April 13, 2012, 11:11 am | # | Reply

      I’m very happy about this and the last few pages too :D

  2. MichaelHaneline
    MichaelHaneline
    April 13, 2012, 12:11 am | # | Reply

    Byron shows up, and the cultists gotta split.

    • Geigan
      Geigan
      April 13, 2012, 2:50 am | # | Reply

      “Uh, hate to cut and run but I gotta deliver some chips to some cultist bros across town. You mi-*SPLURTCH*”

      • anonymous coward
        anonymous coward
        April 13, 2012, 3:54 am | # | Reply

        Let me axe you all, dead or dead?

        • Caitlin
          Caitlin
          April 13, 2012, 7:31 am | # | Reply

          These cultists just didn’t make the cut.

          • eschmenk
            eschmenk
            April 13, 2012, 12:47 pm | # | Reply

            Yes, Byron had the edge in that fight.

            • Geigan
              Geigan
              April 13, 2012, 3:08 pm | # | Reply

              Just a bunch of hacks really. Byron obviously cleaves to a higher standard.

  3. Jean-Luc
    Jean-Luc
    April 13, 2012, 12:18 am | # | Reply

    So that’s why they call it an axe head.

  4. jokerlope
    jokerlope
    April 13, 2012, 12:22 am | # | Reply

    Does Byron have an axe to grind with just this particular cult? or cults in general?

    • Andreas
      Andreas
      April 13, 2012, 1:59 am | # | Reply

      It used to be a cult, now it is a’culled.

    • Syncline
      Syncline
      April 13, 2012, 9:02 am | # | Reply

      I do believe he had an axe to grind over that curse they tossed on him

  5. Mordecai
    Mordecai
    April 13, 2012, 12:24 am | # | Reply

    Cultists made him angry. You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.

  6. SaltyKracka
    SaltyKracka
    April 13, 2012, 12:50 am | # | Reply

    Now that’s what I call a splitting headache.

  7. karishi
    karishi
    April 13, 2012, 1:14 am | # | Reply

    Reminds me of what I say when my assassin ganks someone in City of Heroes: “You don’t get to do things anymore.”

    • Dusty668
      Dusty668
      April 13, 2012, 6:13 am | # | Reply

      CoH! <3

      • FlyingFish
        FlyingFish
        April 13, 2012, 4:43 pm | # | Reply

        *seconds the CoH love*

        *breaks out the mastermind who asks random thugs nicely if they wouldn’t mind helping her do this one thing?*

  8. belatedEpiphany
    belatedEpiphany
    April 13, 2012, 1:18 am | # | Reply

    …I think I was less scared of the berserker.
    cold, justified Byron as a new flavor of berserk?
    perhaps the cure is not as effective as it seems.

    • Andreas
      Andreas
      April 13, 2012, 2:03 am | # | Reply

      A rage like that, kept under control, it’s like super powers.

    • Lynxx
      Lynxx
      April 13, 2012, 2:05 am | # | Reply

      are you kidding? he just lost his weakness to DARK attacks. and he is using FIGHTING against them! if anything is SUPER EFFECTIVE.

      • Durgrumm
        Durgrumm
        April 13, 2012, 2:14 am | # | Reply

        I have to applaud you for this one. I was thinking the same thing :-D

      • Phil
        Flo
        April 13, 2012, 2:54 am | # | Reply

        Two Gold Stars.

        • karishi
          karishi
          April 13, 2012, 2:30 pm | # | Reply

          Holy cats! Is that allowed?

          • Lynxx
            Lynxx
            April 13, 2012, 11:07 pm | # | Reply

            i dunno, but i LIKE IT.

    • common cents
      common cents
      February 11, 2016, 9:30 pm | # | Reply

      Nah, I’d do the same dang thing.

  9. Lynxx
    Lynxx
    April 13, 2012, 2:05 am | # | Reply

    it is*

  10. Kharn
    Kharn
    April 13, 2012, 3:12 am | # | Reply

    Well, I think we’ve an idea of what happened to Battleshire… (If we didn’t already?)

    • Jaang
      Jaang
      April 13, 2012, 3:27 am | # | Reply

      Byron wiped out the town after being cursed with berzerness by cultists?

      • flevine
        flevine
        April 13, 2012, 6:53 am | # | Reply

        I’d wondered something like that, but back then others replied his track record suggested he was too inept…and that was after we saw him berserk.

        • Guest
          Guest
          April 13, 2012, 7:17 am | # | Reply

          We have to remember that these guys are all NPCs.
          We’ve seen already that Byron’s fine when it comes to PvE…PvP, not so much. He’s clearly just not built for it.

        • eschmenk
          eschmenk
          April 13, 2012, 1:21 pm | # | Reply

          The “others” were probably wrong, then. In this earlier comment, you made it sound as if there was only one person who thought that. Different people are going to speculate differently, so it’s probably no big deal.

          • flevine
            flevine
            April 13, 2012, 3:10 pm | # | Reply

            *shrug* :-D With 31,000+ comments it’s hard to keep track of exactly when who said what. Gettin’ old here, memory’s not as sharp. There was a lot of back and forth over things like, was Byron lame, how lame, was he completely inept, was he a proper Berserker, a good Berserker but a bad fighter, should the party kick him out for being useless, etc., etc. etc.

            • Andreas
              Andreas
              April 14, 2012, 6:42 am | # | Reply

              Do you remember Harky shittin’ himself in the arena, clawing the walls to get the hell out of Byron’s way?
              I’d say that the berserk rage is comparable to small tac-nuke.

              Also, srsly, we haven’t seen Byron failing at PvP… we’ve seen him not beating Frigg, but that’s not PvP, it’s 5v5, and the five aren’t regular players.

              • flevine
                flevine
                April 14, 2012, 7:29 am | # | Reply

                Well, of course I remember Harky’s reaction. :-) I was just recalling that despite all of that, many people were arguing he was lame, ineffective, and/or should be punted. Many others (including myself) disagreed.

                I’m not a gamer so all of this PvP and PvE stuff (and how it might apply) doesn’t occur to me…I just read it as a story. But I used to tabletop RPG, and I can say that I had GMs whose NPCs sometimes beat us to a pulp or worse. ;-)

                • Andreas
                  Andreas
                  April 14, 2012, 5:41 pm | # | Reply

                  Ah, I get it!
                  I always cheer for the guy whose plan carries the day, even when said guy is rendered unconscious at first contact with the enemy :D
                  As per Storming the giant guard in the Pirate mine…

                  A perfect plan is one that doesn’t depend on babysitting it to fruition, right?

    • Phil
      Flo
      April 13, 2012, 2:25 pm | # | Reply

      Achievement Unlocked!

      Post the 31,000th comment!

  11. Lupo
    Lupo
    April 13, 2012, 3:33 am | # | Reply

    Loved the monologue. So intense I almost felt his rage….

  12. cjrayn
    cjrayn
    April 13, 2012, 5:19 am | # | Reply

    Now he’s gonna have to change his title from berzerker to Killing Machine.

    I think he may have been what Sundar was talking about that time…

    • The Indomitable Eric
      The Indomitable Eric
      April 13, 2012, 3:25 pm | # | Reply

      A mechanical whore?

      • Andreas
        Andreas
        April 14, 2012, 5:29 pm | # | Reply

        Yes, a sex machine

  13. zero
    zero
    April 13, 2012, 6:02 am | # | Reply

    scooby dooby *axe to the head* THUD

    • MikeC
      MikeC
      April 14, 2012, 11:11 am | # | Reply

      Scooby-Doobie-Done?

      • Andreas
        Andreas
        April 14, 2012, 5:34 pm | # | Reply

        Scooby-Don’t

  14. Dusty668
    Dusty668
    April 13, 2012, 6:15 am | # | Reply

    Looks like he’s on track, but still chopping prophets.

  15. Nielspeterdejong
    Nielspeterdejong
    April 13, 2012, 8:14 am | # | Reply

    Ok, this page just ROCKED!

    And the ending was so fitting to cultists and nihilists as a matter of fact.

    Serieusly, you want everything to end? Well end it for yourself then, but keep it to yourself ;p

  16. flevine
    flevine
    April 13, 2012, 9:06 am | # | Reply

    Well, I’m not a gamer, so that didn’t even occur to me. :-D I think we’ve only seen him fight Frigg (which was for fun, more or less) and Best (for which I presume he held himself in check). And there was that weird implication that this world may not simply be a game…

    • flevine
      flevine
      April 13, 2012, 9:06 am | # | Reply

      Ack, bleh–that was supposed to be in response to Guest, above.

  17. Syncline
    Syncline
    April 13, 2012, 9:07 am | # | Reply

    So this is Byron, in a suppressed Berserk rage and stoned on sillibus.

    No wonder Bandit liked it. Hack and slash, meet deadly calm.
    So _that_ was what Eastwood was smoking in those little cigars….

    • Ishmael
      Ishmael
      April 13, 2012, 10:54 pm | # | Reply

      Fun Fact: Clint Eastwood hated smoking.

      • Abcus
        Abcus
        April 14, 2012, 1:11 pm | # | Reply

        Things like this make me want to go back to NOT having my own avatar.

        Cheers,

        Cote

  18. drakvl
    drakvl
    April 13, 2012, 10:28 am | # | Reply

    Ah, yes. You know all that self-hatred you have boiling inside? That’s been there so long, it’s become an old friend? Let’s see what happens when it gets directed at someone else. Beautiful.

  19. JarrysKid
    JarrysKid
    April 13, 2012, 11:12 am | # | Reply

    Byron Berserker took his axes
    And gave the cultists forty whackses.
    When he saw that they were done,
    He went to find some other ones.

    • randomdude
      randomdude
      April 13, 2012, 11:49 am | # | Reply

      He looked in caves and temples dark.
      He had his own small story arc.
      Now that he can’t lose his head,
      He will not rest till all are dead.

      • cjrayn
        cjrayn
        April 15, 2012, 6:36 am | # | Reply

        When he faced many he stood only one.
        His mind is focused, and fear he has none.
        He layed them low, cutting them all,
        And put an axe in the last one’s skull.

  20. Unrealcomix
    Unrealcomix
    April 13, 2012, 12:03 pm | # | Reply

    Oh yes.
    Oh HELL yes.
    Oh HELL.
    FUCKING.
    YES.
    (can I say that word? :x)

    • JarrysKid
      JarrysKid
      April 13, 2012, 12:23 pm | # | Reply

      Fuck no, you can’t say “hell”!

    • karishi
      karishi
      April 13, 2012, 2:39 pm | # | Reply

      I have considered it fair game since THIS episode at the latest.

    • Robtimus
      Robtimus
      April 13, 2012, 7:20 pm | # | Reply

      Pretty sure it’s okay, the first one was way back.

  21. Dolash
    Dolash
    April 13, 2012, 12:50 pm | # | Reply

    So his rage was a cult’s curse? I figured it was PTSD.

    Unless it was PTSD from a cult.

    • Asterai
      Asterai
      April 13, 2012, 1:02 pm | # | Reply

      It can be both, y’know. He may have picked a Berserker class, and entered the game to find that a suitable backstory had been constructed for him from thin air, influenced by his real-life emotional trauma. Just like Frigg got a backstory/nature suitable to her real-life attitudes.

  22. SteelRaven
    SteelRaven
    April 13, 2012, 7:22 pm | # | Reply

    …I’m starting to wonder how those kids in the burlap sack or holding up.

  23. Tsapki
    Tsapki
    April 13, 2012, 9:11 pm | # | Reply

    Ah, it was my bad. Always been Old Gods they refer to.

    http://guildedage.net/webcomic/chapter-2/chapter-2-page-2/

  24. ThePuck1
    ThePuck1
    April 14, 2012, 10:46 pm | # | Reply

    So, Dead Cultist. What’s the last thing that went through your head before you were slain?

    An Axe.

    • coldelectrons
      coldelectrons
      April 15, 2012, 3:49 am | # | Reply

      New stand-up comedy act, Gravedust and Grarl the Dead Cultist.

      • Andreas
        Andreas
        April 15, 2012, 7:31 am | # | Reply

        He will achieve final rest by perform as a sock puppet?
        Sort of makes sense, living life as a puppet, hair of the dog, and all.

  25. CaptEndo
    CaptEndo
    November 15, 2013, 10:49 pm | # | Reply

    This is the Byron I’ve always known was under the surface! My kind of fighter! Cold, deliberate, righteous anger focused into a dance with axes!

  26. common cents
    common cents
    February 11, 2016, 9:39 pm | # | Reply

    From Gravedust’s reaction, I would be surprised to learn that the plot is done with the Berserker state, unless this is another thing gone wrong with H.R.’s plans.
    Speaking of which, H.R. REALLY needs to win some battles soon, because he is getting boring and non-threatening.

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Guilded Age is co-written by T Campbell & Flo Kahn, and illustrated by John Waltrip. Site design by Samantha Kyle. Fonts by Blambot.com.
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