Annotated 40-24
This won’t be the last time that the young sky elves just kinda…keep hanging around after they’ve been dismissed in conversation. It happens often enough that it feels less like a goof on our parts and more like a trait of theirs.
I don’t remember when we decided that the winter elves would be part of the final act, a necessary source of information before the finale. At one point in our outlines, I think, trauma and/or meditation was going to lead the Five to an awareness of their tubed counterparts, and they would’ve had more interactions with HR. Those things would answer at least some of the questions Syr’Nj is laying down here. But as the series developed, HR became even more of an unreliable narrator, and the idea of the Five knowing their tuber counterparts became more unsatisfying to us as the Five got more real in our own minds. Explanations like “berserking exists because some guy in a tube wanted it to” are no longer sufficient after you invest in Byron emotionally. Since we’d dropped references to winter elves in Chapter 1 and the Ask an Adventurer series, they seemed like potential payoff on early planting. So they came to address the needs that HR and the Five could no longer fulfill on their own.
And we”ll get to that. But first… didn’t there used to be a dwarf main character in this series?
Love Syr’Nj’s face in panel two. THAT EXPRESSION THO
Why isn’t Scipio in this scene?
He wasn’t with the group at this time.
I think Jason is wondering because his girlfriend/ wife/whatever their relationship is is in the scene. An explanation I can think of is that he isn’t the kind of person who just hangs out where he isn’t needed and in a medical situation he would probably be more in the way than actually helpful
What SteelRaven said, plus: Syr’Nj called on Fr’Nj because no one else could possibly have saved Kur’Ik, but she had no similar need for Scipio, and while he’s with Fr’Nj in B’ial Vezk, they aren’t joined at the hip. He could be off gathering dinner while Fr’Nj works. (Plus, he would have had nothing to contribute to this scene and it was a crowded enough conversation as it was.)
I’ve noticed over the past few comics how labile Clair’s facial features are. Now they’ve vanished entirely, having presumably wandered round to the back of her head for a little while.
So, first Syr’Nj tells E-Merl off with that lovely motherly look in panel 3, silly E-Merl!
And then she confirms that yes, they will indeed be making off to the other end of the world :)