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

'Also, I CAN SO grow in a full beard! I just don't want to!'

Chapter 34 – Page 22

on October 8, 2014
Chapter: Chapter 34
└ Tags: Bayen, Brayen, Byron
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Discussion (55) ¬

  1. Aslandus
    Aslandus
    October 8, 2014, 12:04 am | # | Reply

    “I still have your axes! You should have come unarmed if you wanted me to believe you!”

    • TxGator
      TxGator
      October 8, 2014, 10:17 am | # | Reply

      They could of made/bought new axes that looked like their previous ones.

      • Sharkie
        Sharkie
        October 8, 2014, 3:16 pm | # | Reply

        You don’t just MAKE a new weapon that was an entire symbol of YOU AS A PERSON. Those were THEIR weaposn. One of a kind. Irreplaceable. A part of their body and soul. Byron took them as a way to remember them and feel like they were with him at all times NOT because they were the weapons they had when they grew up. But because they WERE their weapons. They were for all intents and purposes THEM. You do not just remake something like that.

        • LockeZ
          LockeZ
          October 8, 2014, 6:52 pm | # | Reply

          Uh… you’re making a hell of a lot of assumptions there.

        • TxGator
          TxGator
          October 9, 2014, 9:18 am | # | Reply

          Maybe they were irreplaceable. But if we presumed they did come back from the dead, then they came back weaponless. As adventurers, they’d need new weapons. So why not buy/craft new axes? Sure, they won’t be the same extensions of their persona as they were before. But a generic axe is still better than no axe in a fight.

          In either case, I guess it’s a moot point now, given the events that unfold in the following page.

  2. Brigand Brigade
    Brigand Brigade
    October 8, 2014, 12:06 am | # | Reply

    They DON’T think you’re stupid, Byron, they think they can make you angry. That was the whole point of bringing the anti-crazy potion.

    • Grenaid
      Grenaid
      October 8, 2014, 12:46 am | # | Reply

      Yeah, making it personal.

    • Snowblind
      Snowblind
      October 8, 2014, 1:22 am | # | Reply

      PUNY ILLUSIONS!

      • tejón
        tejón
        October 8, 2014, 11:40 am | # | Reply

        BYRON DISBELIEVE!

        • SotiCoto
          SotiCoto
          April 6, 2016, 7:37 am | # | Reply

          I disbelieve the walls! And the ceiling! And the air!

    • biggmac
      biggmac
      October 8, 2014, 2:48 am | # | Reply

      Byron: “You two really think I’m that stupid?”
      B & B: “Actually – yes, you doofus”
      Byron: “Waitaminit. NOW you sound like the older brothers I grew up with.”

      • laughingsnarl
        laughingsnarl
        October 8, 2014, 8:58 am | # | Reply

        That’s because WE ARE! *tears off face masks* just kidding we’re cultists! stabbity stab stab stab!

  3. Jean-Luc
    Jean-Luc
    October 8, 2014, 12:29 am | # | Reply

    People in movies fall for this all the time so it was worth a try.

  4. Kennerly
    Kennerly
    October 8, 2014, 12:31 am | # | Reply

    But if this isn’t necromancy, what is it?

    • Jean-Luc
      Jean-Luc
      October 8, 2014, 12:34 am | # | Reply

      Reusing assets.

    • Insanenoodlyguy
      Insanenoodlyguy
      October 8, 2014, 12:36 am | # | Reply

      oh hell… (possible spoiler warning here just in case?) IT’S TIME TRAVEL.

      • Insanenoodlyguy
        Insanenoodlyguy
        October 8, 2014, 12:39 am | # | Reply

        yeah probably not.

    • The Indomitable Eric
      The Indomitable Eric
      October 8, 2014, 12:41 am | # | Reply

      Illusions, son.

      • nemui
        nemui
        October 8, 2014, 5:56 am | # | Reply

        Also known as “magic tricks” by certain… professionals.

        http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110430051827/arresteddevelopment/images/thumb/d/d2/1x1_Alliance_of_Magicians.png/670px-1x1_Alliance_of_Magicians.png

    • Fenlander
      Fenlander
      October 8, 2014, 2:55 am | # | Reply

      I vote for shape changers, the axes and clothes are all part of the creatures.

      • Minando
        Minando
        October 8, 2014, 3:06 am | # | Reply

        I vote for DreamWorks Animation.

        • Drunken Nordmann
          Drunken Nordmann
          October 8, 2014, 5:51 am | # | Reply

          Can’t be DreamWorks – they’re missing that insufferable smirk.

    • Tsapki
      Tsapki
      October 8, 2014, 4:56 am | # | Reply

      It’s madness.

      -waits patiently-

      • Ahighfunctioningsociopath
        Ahighfunctioningsociopath
        October 8, 2014, 7:46 am | # | Reply

        no it’s patrick

  5. alicemacher
    alicemacher
    October 8, 2014, 12:47 am | # | Reply

    Whoa. On one hand, Byron’s justified in his disbelief and anger.

    On the other…their names are in the tags for this strip. Too bad we can’t shout, “Byron! Don’t be too quick with your axes just yet.” (Well, we could…it just wouldn’t do any good.)

    • PawnOfTheThree
      PawnOfTheThree
      October 8, 2014, 2:26 am | # | Reply

      That’s just the thing. Those might be Byron’s axes now… but they used to belong to Bayen and Brayen… who are very visibly holding them.

      • SotiCoto
        SotiCoto
        January 26, 2015, 11:45 am | # | Reply

        You think axes can’t be remade?

        Axes are better than swords largely because they’re easy to maintain AND cheap to replace.

    • Jacquerel
      Jacquerel
      October 8, 2014, 5:24 am | # | Reply

      Naming their kids “Bayen, Brayen, and Byron” must have been a decision their parents thought was hilarious for a day and then very quickly regretted.

      • Psolo Ghoti
        Psolo Ghoti
        October 8, 2014, 4:36 pm | # | Reply

        Byron isn’t their real brother, though.

  6. SteelRaven
    SteelRaven
    October 8, 2014, 1:10 am | # | Reply

    … does the rest of team see the same thing or are they seeing people from their memories? If it’s the later, things are about to get real messy.

  7. LockeZ
    LockeZ
    October 8, 2014, 1:55 am | # | Reply

    How sure are we that they’re dead? The tags are not helpful in finding comics where they were merely mentioned. Did Byron bury them? All I can remember is that “There was a town called Battleshire. Then the cultists came. And now there isn’t.”

    I mean, if Byron didn’t bury them, and they didn’t die on-panel, then by movie logic they’re not really dead.

    The funny thing is that the only person in this comic who we’re really sure definitely died is Byron!

    • PawnOfTheThree
      PawnOfTheThree
      October 8, 2014, 2:29 am | # | Reply

      He’s holding Bayen and Brayen’s axes. So are the two men he’s seeing.

      Also Byron’s kinda a big deal name wise, being the leader of the Gastonia Adventurer’s Guild and member of the Peacekeepers. If these two had been alive and looking for him all this time, they’d certainly have been able to find him.

      • LockeZ
        LockeZ
        October 8, 2014, 2:49 am | # | Reply

        Did you know you can just MAKE unadorned axes with plain wooden handles? S’truth.

        I didn’t say they were looking for him. My actual suspicion is that they were not killed by the cultists because they joined the cultists.

        • nemui
          nemui
          October 8, 2014, 5:58 am | # | Reply

          Ooh, I like that idea. Maybe that’s what HR did, just wrote the two NPCs that were supposedly part of the cult all along, ever since Battleshire. But we won’t know for sure if they’re real until we see the rest of Byron’s team interacting with them.

        • PawnOfTheThree
          PawnOfTheThree
          October 8, 2014, 2:48 pm | # | Reply

          “I didn’t say they were looking for him”

          ~Points to the line in the comic where THEY say that they were.~

  8. biggmac
    biggmac
    October 8, 2014, 2:39 am | # | Reply

    Anyone else notice that B & B (the illusions, not the axes) are holding the same exact body poses in panels 2 and 3? Like they’re vogueing. Wonder whassup wit dat.

    • Derp
      Derp
      October 8, 2014, 8:03 am | # | Reply

      Peasants tied to the trees, glamored with B&B, *just for Byron.*

      The rest of the party sees Byron hauling off and slaughtering innocents for no reason. InstaTPK, just add water.

      Hopefully he can come back as a blackguard.

      • TBeckett
        TBeckett
        October 8, 2014, 10:33 am | # | Reply

        Ooh that’d be a nasty trick. And the spells could be set to only work for someone with the madness already in them. We still really don’t know the nature of that condition.

    • Rolan7
      Rolan7
      October 8, 2014, 12:51 pm | # | Reply

      That is uncanny, and maybe it does mean something, but their silhouettes in the previous page were in different poses.

  9. Cubanpep
    Cubanpep
    October 8, 2014, 6:15 am | # | Reply

    Wonder where this is heading.

    • Zippideedoodah
      Zippideedoodah
      October 8, 2014, 9:24 pm | # | Reply

      … where this is be-heading ?

  10. Minando
    Minando
    October 8, 2014, 8:20 am | # | Reply

    I can´t help noticing they still have their weapons ready…

  11. Harrowed
    Harrowed
    October 8, 2014, 9:29 am | # | Reply

    How do we know they didn’t just join the crazies?

  12. Mordecai
    Mordecai
    October 8, 2014, 10:11 am | # | Reply

    “Behold, Battleshire. Once a town, then a pyre. Its return will sink cities in death’s endless mire.”

  13. herpderp
    herpderp
    October 8, 2014, 10:19 am | # | Reply

    Thing is, their faces look older now.

    • LockeZ
      LockeZ
      October 8, 2014, 6:53 pm | # | Reply

      Older than what? The two flashbacks we saw of them where Byron was a little kid?

      • herpderp
        herpderp
        October 9, 2014, 1:12 am | # | Reply

        Yes. Which shows that they’ve aged.

  14. TBeckett
    TBeckett
    October 8, 2014, 10:38 am | # | Reply

    Since the nature of ‘the madness’ is still a mystery, perhaps the cultists can perform unusual actions with it? For instance: magically control the subjects, subdue them, and revive them?

    We’d have to wonder why the cultists hadn’t used the ability on Byron of course, but maybe his brothers were singled out for a ‘special’ form of the Madness.

  15. RahDream
    RahDream
    October 8, 2014, 3:02 pm | # | Reply

    Could well be the two of them for REALZ. The year-in-preview page showed what looked like the two of them in full-on-frothing-at-the-mouth-Madness-mode. And, as quoted by Mordecai, there’s a prophecy of sorts about Battleshire returning (and bring death and madness with it). So maybe, like Byron, they survived Battleshire’s destruction, but were kept under the effects of the Madness by the cultists this whole time (frothing berserkers used as mindless weapons), now brought out as bait for a trap to repeat the whole affair on THIS town and start a Plague of Madness or something

    It was kind of implied (but never outright stated I think) that the Cultists used the Madness to have Battleshire tear itself apart (or maybe just infected Byron and/or his brothers to do it). All we really know for sure at this point was that the town existed, Byron grew up there with his bros (who trained him and whose axes he seems to carry, named after them), then the cult showed up, the town is/was GONE, and Byron presumably got infected with Madness at that point.

    • Mordecai
      Mordecai
      October 8, 2014, 3:37 pm | # | Reply

      Alternate theory: They survived, rebuilt Battleshire, but everyone in it is a sleeper, so to speak, carrying the madness. And now the Guild will be infected by it, Rage virus-style.

      ALTERNATE ALTERNATE THEORY: Bear with me here: Brother Tom knew B&B were alive, hunting down cultists, and set up this elaborate bait so that Byron thinks they’re cultists, kills them, realizes they weren’t, and loses his shit so hard that not even Syr’nj’s potion can suppress it. The army that he has raised, as Brother Tom predicted? The new Battleshire. Also infected by the madness. Destruction ensues.

      ALTERNATE ALTERNATE ALTERNATE THEORY: Some other thing I haven’t thought of.

  16. Fren
    Fren
    October 8, 2014, 4:13 pm | # | Reply

    Byron’s love for them is like a truck …

  17. The Indomitable Eric
    The Indomitable Eric
    October 8, 2014, 6:48 pm | # | Reply

    “You think I’m really that stupid?”
    “Well, we were kinda hoping…”

  18. Blake
    Blake
    October 8, 2014, 6:59 pm | # | Reply

    Crap, I finally caught up to the most recent page. I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed reading this comic up to now. On to the page at hand though, I can’t tell if he’s going to give them the axe or a teary-eyes speech that really cuts deep

  19. Ben Solo
    Ben Solo
    October 8, 2014, 7:11 pm | # | Reply

    Its his allies disguised as his brothers in order for him to believe they are cultists in disguise to make him seemingly go crazy and kill his OWN TEAM-MATES. Calling it!

    • chase
      chase
      October 8, 2014, 7:41 pm | # | Reply

      This is what I came here to say.

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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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