Annotated 18-19
I like the vibe between these two here: their love is still new enough that even in Syr’Nj’s current state, she can muster a brief smile. Other than that, she’s all business, just as she was in her last few statements to E-Merl and Gravedust before she left them. And since Syr’Nj is usually all business in battle, Byron doesn’t even know something else is wrong until it’s too late.
Treating life as “a series of tasks that need doing” isn’t a bad coping mechanism, necessarily. It’s largely how my wife got through it when we lost her dad, a few years back. But the most demanding tasks require an unobstructed mind, which Syr does not have right now.
But at least she had enough presence of mind to (presumably) go back to Naror’Nj’s house and pick up the axes before running the shark gauntlet. Nice use of her bag of holding.
“a series of tasks that need doing”
“We are creatures of duty, you and I. Just one last duty to perform…”
Zar Belk!
The one time we get to see Auraugu without a mask, we still can’t really see his face.
How does he survive this, anyway? I mean, we can probably assume that non-berserking Byron wouldn’t chop an unconscious enemy to pieces no matter what, but that stab wound from panel 1 looks deep enough to be lung-puncturing, which would be severely incapacitating even if not downright fatal, and soon Byron will be too busy with stopping Syr’Nj to care about helping Auraugu.
Theory…he’s a PC, so even if he’s killed outside of his player’s control, he gets respawns, as long as it’s not a Corruptor Beast situation.
That wound looked worse than it was, though it was severe enough to take Auraugu off the board for the next hour or two. Gnolls aren’t quite the prodigious healers that trolls are, but they’re not too shabby at it either, they’re built Ford tough, and Auraugu is known as the toughest of them for a reason.
Ah. The light reflected by a wood elf becomes green shifted over long distances. Because of course.