1096 One Was Enough.

I intended to get a little further with the story but it was not in the cards. I was unable to work normally last night and have fallen behind yet again. I wrote a little but not as much as I wanted to. In any case what I finished will be at the end of the blog and updated to the fiction tab.

I’m still accepting friends for Animal Crossing: New Leaf. My code is on my twitter profile and I’m not going to look it up. It’s also a couple of journals back I’m sure. The game really does make it easy to jump from town to town and trade stuff. Kind of how you always hoped it would work before, but didn’t. People have been very helpful and I’ve gotten a nice chunk of a few sets in spite of not being able to play much. some of the new sets are really nice looking too.

Anyway, more story:

Instinctively they readied themselves. Julius ran his hands quickly around the edges of the door looking for some kind of release mechanism. There seemed to be an indication running along the right side of the door, into the darkness. He decided to gamble on this chance.

“This way!” He said urgently. “Keep them off me if you can!” Even as the group began moving laterally into the room a desiccated figure shambled into the unnatural glow that followed them. No one was surprised. The skeletal warrior, dressed in dusty armor, was followed by another, and another. Each one was dressed after the same manner as the first. As they stepped further into the lit circle they seemed to become more focused, aware of what was in front of them. Their jaws mouthed silent warnings at the group, their hands gesturing at them as if giving instructions.

Julius was nearly running along the wall now. A smaller bubble of light began breaking off to follow him. The others couldn’t keep up and keep an eye on the slow moving threat. He was too focused on opening the door, panic was beginning to take hold. He didn’t notice the pile of bones and metal in his path until he was sprawled on the cold, stone, floor. Several feet away he heard Regalius beginning to play his song of fire. The others had been attacked in earnest now and he had gotten himself separated. Julius righted himself as quiclky as he could. There were several piles of soldier scattered around the area he could now see, and the one he tripped over was beginning to stir. He regocnized an arm bone and brought his heel down as hard as he could. It splintered into a two halves. The did the same with the forearm of the other side, but only split one bone. As the figure stood its hand lost hold of its weapon and hung there lamely. Julius watched in horrified fascination as the skeleton cast its empty eye sockets over its mangled limbs. Its mouth silently uttering curses. This was not normal even for a reanimated soldier. After a few moments of what appeared to be panting and sobbing the crippled thing noticed its attacker. Julius thought for a moment he could hear screaming from someplace very far away. HIM! IT WAS HIM! Julius was almost totally lost in the grim spectacle, but he became aware in his periphery of other figures heeding the call of their comrade.

A short distance away the others were beginning to spread out as they were forced to parry more and more attackers. Regalius had switched to fighting outright as the others could barely keep themselves safe, let alone cover him as he played. He was still attempting to cast verbal spells but the onslaught was too much to concentrate through. More attackers were beginning to fill in the gaps between them.

“Don’t let them separate us!” Alina called out, and the others began trying to regroup as best they could.

“These things are organized!” Cried Niona. “They’re not supposed to be like this!”

“This is powerful magic! I’ve never seen the equal of it!” Regalius replied. “It’s like they don’t know they’re dead!”

“It doesn’t matter!” Yelled Alina, swinging her mace with thunderous force through a cluster of enemies. “They still crumble if you hit them hard enough!”

23 Comments

I just caved and bought Animal Crossing. This is my first time playing the franchise so we’ll see how it goes. Add me as a friend if you like: 5429-7429-1074

Also, it might just be because of the buildup of animosity throughout the strips but I’m not really liking “Constance Willowbrooke.” Give me Reggie any day.

You know, silly pen names aside, Dawn doesn’t seem to have done much to earn the title of villain. Thomas doesn’t really look like a hero right now…

Thomas is, at best, a protagonist. On a good day he’s at least sympathetic, but this isn’t a good day for him. XD

dude, he’s still empathetic, he’s a very believable person and I also respond to many things with snark, sarcasm, and cynicism

I think what he’s saying that other than what we’ve been told about Dawn, (Which seemed to be mostly opinion from Thomas) she hasn’t really done anything wrong. Although I respond with sarcasm constantly myself, Thomas is more or less just being cold with her.

I respond to most things with “Fuck you, I’m on break, I don’t care if you sign my checks.” This may or may not be why I’m currently unemployed.

At the moment we don’t know what Dawn has done to merit Thomas’s ire.

In my own Life, I get the same thing between me and my ex. People meeting her for the first time find her sweet and personable. They have no clue what she did to me, which was vicious, heartless, coldly self-serving, and in my mind, evil.

Someone from the future:

You don’t really know the trueself of a person, yeah they look innocent and sometimes they genuinely are. But one thing we all need to understand is that just because WE find them cool, doesn’t mean that they’re always cool ya get what I’m talking about? It’s those moments when we have real heart to heart talks is when we see the reality.

Oh, Dawn. Just one example is NEVER enough. Otherwise, how would you know how terrible it is?

And those skeletons are trying to communicate! They’re trying to talk to Julius! Obviously, they know the secret of the Drywood Altar thing and are trying to tell him.

Hey, just a quick comment.

Still loving the comic. Today’s was really funny.

Could you please start a thread for the story? Still keep posting new portions with the new comics, but maybe start a separate page where we can read it all to get caught up, and then read the new sections with the comic? Just a thought. Or just let me know which comic had the first section and I’ll go from there.

Keep up the great work. Thanks!

Good lord Thomas comes off as an asshole in this strip…..if this is a glimpse of the before times me no likey.

In his defense she has shown herself to be a just a tad slow on the uptake and a bit oblivious on reading him.
Speaking from experience of my own dark-times [tm]. A protracted relationship with an oblivious/selfcentered partner ends up in an arms race. Oblivious to snark and once the levels have stabilized it is very hard to reduce the autonomic response [see Pavlov – dog].

I just thought I’d let you know, I’m still getting virus/”bad website” warnings from Google when I come by here. Maybe it’s something about the old version of Safari I’m using, I don’t know, but you might want to check in with them anyway.

I’m a big fan of the comic, by the way, and glad to finally be seeing “the great and terrible Dawn.”

Maybe it’s just me, but I hate the name Constance. I can’t wrap my tongue around it. It’s like it hates to be sounded out.

Am I the only one who is curious as to how long ago these two broke up and who the father of Dawn’s child is? Given the hatred he has towards her, it seems like the breakup was pretty recent, maybe in the past year? I think revealing that Thomas is the father would be a twist that could challenge the relationship between Carol and Thomas. She could have found out a month after they broke up and that was another catylist that prompted her to write, and would explain why she self-published instead of went with an established publisher. -shrug- Just my musings though. I enjoy the comic and can’t wait for the next update.

I have never properly worked out the timeline, but they dated for about 3 years while she was finishing high school and he was starting college. So this was probably 3 or 4 years ago, just as a guess. The other stuff gets answered in a while so I’ll leave that alone.

After re-reading this portion of the comic’s run [been one of the lurkers since ’10], I’d forgotten what great serialized flow you’ve crafted, Crave. Quite awesome!

Also, is it just me, or does Constance resemble NPR’s Terry Gross, the host of “Fresh Air?” …circa 1994, when she was trying her damnedest to still look young, hot, hip & relevant?

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