Annotated 40-8
It’s “li’l,” or maybe “lil,” but definitely not “l’il.” Don’t know why that bothers me, I guess because it’s such an easy typo to ignore until you think about it!
E-Merl spends a frame or two here finally coming to grips with the idea that his carelessness has got them all killed. Granted, it’s not like the other Peacemakers are immune to manipulation. Iwatani could’ve misled Sundar with some blather about a campaign to restore adventurers’ good name and thus safeguard the legacy of Byron and Brunhilde. He could’ve taken advantage of WAV’s whole “I am not of this realm, what are ‘ralds’?” dealio. He could’ve paid somebody to challenge Frigg to a kobold-smiting contest.
But he didn’t: he got E-Merl, the one active Peacemaker other than Syr’Nj who would normally be the toughest mark for a con job, not the easiest. I mean, this con was all about misdirection, something that E-Merl generally knows a bit about. And that makes it worse. As E-Merl sobers (notice he’s no longer slurring his words), he can’t hide behind the “no one could’ve seen this coming” excuse.
E-Merl’s expression in the fourth panel is really haunting. He’s about to die but he’s not scared. He’s not even sad, although he’s been sad all this time. He’s mortified to think that the cost of his failure is being paid by his friends. Maybe this will be one thing that will help him eventually move on from losing Rachel: there are still more loved ones left to lose, should his vigilance fail again.
Since the cultists will be interrupted on the next page, what thing were they doing here?
Building up a massive ball of destructive energy sufficient to break the circlet.
Arkerran obviously has a different word, leading to “l’il”.
Sleuthing is possible, although nothing conclusive:
The apostrophe marks the elition, and why would you elide a stressed syllable?
In other words, the original form of l’il would be a word of at least two syllables, of which the first one is unstressed and starts with “l” and the last one is a stressed -il.
So, it’s obviously “Lucille”.
Clearly, E-merl has already asked Sundar to stop calling him “Shirley”.