Phil was less sanguine about the writing on this page… until the last line, where it all clicked into place for him.

Love that “trap-shadow” effect in panel 1.

I gotta say, this is some of the most sensible talk we’ll ever get out of Sundar. I guess almost all of us have our areas of expertise, even if some of those are pretty narrowly focused. At the time, we viewed this scene as representative of Byron and Sundar’s dynamic, but now I think it shows how their friendship formed at a time when Byron, though of greater native intelligence, was still a little bit the learner and Sundar the teacher.

Byron, after all, would’ve spent some time after the destruction of Battleshire just trying day by day to reestablish control over his life, and we’ll see him admit to the fact that he had other “berserk moments” between Battleshire and Souff Kural. That would mean he’d lag behind other adventurers in learning the trade until he could wield a pair of axes with confidence in his self-control.