Little discoveries

Just look at her, getting all upset that she doesn’t understand something~ That’s why she’ll always be just an assistant! My little nameless character, don’t you understand that things which you cannot comprehend are the most interesting ones?..

This page was done in a rush, so pardon if something is wrong. Comments under the latest page made me realize you guys have absolutely no way of understanding what I am trying to show you here. I check once, checked twice and nope, things I wanted to say were still only in my head and not on the already prepared pages sighhh… So I had to drop everything, rewrite the dialogues and add this seemingly not important page ╰(゜Д゜)╯

I am not sure if I’ll manage to continue sketching through December, I got commissioned by a client I never refuse so I might be too busy. But I am quite happy with the latest sketch so if you haven’t seen it yet please enjoy!

Merry Christmas!

55 comments on “Little discoveries”

  1. Micah Reply

    Making moolah is important. So as much as I want updates, if you can’t afford to pay rent it’ll be hard to upload pages if you like in a van down by the river. Is said project something cool? It better be cool if you’re leaving us for it.

    • Lukkai Reply

      Seconded. Making money is still necessary to live in an alright way. And we hardly have any grounds to complain, seeing as you’re providing us with ample entertainment for free. 😉

      • NotImportant Reply

        Comic updates will continue for sure so it’s not like I’m leaving you ;P
        And mentioned project is… not something I’d like to draw in my free time. So it’s not a lot of fun to work on hah, but no one pays me yet for drawing Ada haha~

        • Refugnic Reply

          The emphasis to be had right here is on the word ‘yet’, isn’t it? 😉

          I think, before long, you’ll be able to make a nice little ‘allowance’ off your work.
          Though I’d like to take the opportunity to not rely on it for a living. That would be quite foolish after all. 🙂

          • NotImportant

            Rely on it for a living? No way, I don’t think that would be even possible. But I’d like it to be earning for its own bills at some point.

          • Refugnic

            Eh, never say never. But it’d be a really hard life to be sure, so let’s rely on our more steady skills and talents. After all one never knows when life takes an unexpected turn and it’s always good to have something a tad more reliable then the fickle muses as a backup plan then.

            Nothing wrong with it paying its own bills though…however this begs the question, do these ‘bills’ also include the time you work for it? 😉

          • Dæmon

            I dunno. Maybe if you get enough pages, you could publish a manga type thing. Granted, you’re going to be in color and will likely have to rework the earliest pages for a bit less variance in the actual art style, but webcomic books sell quite well, from my understanding of some popular ones and the compilation volumes they sell every so often. User Friendly for example, sell a fair amount of merchandise in the form of books, and it’s something I enjoy reading. Also granted, it’s not the highest ranking comic, nor is Order of the Stick, but they both sell a decent amount of merchandise. Not nearly enough money come in to live off of it though, but a good enough webcomic can earn enough to be advertised a decent amount. I have some money on me right now, but it’s not like I can afford to buy the mugs and other things (though I REALLY wanted a poster… )_:),but there are other ways to get money. If you get enough support from a company, and I think it’s possible, given where the comic stands compared to other, longer series, it can grow and become an entire network and you may even be able to hire some assistants to help make the comic.

          • NotImportant

            Those are beautiful and wild ideas which I don’t think will come true in the nearest future 😀 For now my only goal is to produce more pages and continue the story, regardless of the position on topwebcomic or the nonexistent income.

  2. Anonymous K Reply

    So here is my demon hypothesis. The meatballs (I’m just going to refer to the demon tumor things as meatballs now) are energy sources as Stefen says. One part that explains is that the demon can live without its head. Since the meatballs are found in the body they are hard to find and hit as they can be anywhere. Most likely if they are energy sources, destroying the meatballs mean killing the demon. The swords Robert and Ada have are magical, so they can probably drain the energy from the monsters and there by kill them. The stomachs are vestigial, which means they have no need to eat at all, as they won’t absorb nutrients from eating things. The demons most likely get energy from their creator, so the meatballs act as some sort of magical bio battery. So there is my demon hypothesis, if I got some detail wrong please correct me. 🙂

  3. nidacat Reply

    so i have come to two comculeins about the demons
    1) they some how convert mater they eat to energy removing all need for bowule movements thous the “tumors” are a method of storing said energy until needed similarly to fat on a human ,and they did not always have this ability.
    2) they must have a highly redundant system of organs(refer to Klingon )alwing them to survive what would would kill us, when coupled with a high rate of regeneration the can easily be fulled by the first point.
    3)they seem to act with minimole intelagence so the reson to continue hunting even after they have so meny or these”tumers” in the any living thing will atempt to geter as much energy as it can( look at humens even as an “intealgent” speses we still store nearly all ecses engergy in our bodys as fat for later us.)

    • NotImportant Reply

      3) Makes a valid point which I didn’t address yet. The whole purpose of them attacking, that it. It’s especially interesting when I suggested that they don’t feed on humans (stomachs are empty), not in any obvious way at least.

    • Dæmon Reply

      Oh, God. That was hard for me to read. I didn’t mean offense by that, but it is hard for me to read, and English is my first language, not to mention that I pretty good, even for my situation in terms of language comprehension. It needs work, but I think that you could easily accomplish that, with some effort and hard work.

      • Lukkai Reply

        Phrasing is good, actually. Punctuation and word spelling needs work. But it’s easier to read than many a comment/posting I come across (I’m acting as moderator in a small but international forum in my free time, so…).

        • Refugnic Reply

          There is this theory, that one can read completely jumbled up words easily, as long as all letters are there and the first and last letter are in place. This is not much different.

          Besides, as I’m sure you know as a moderator, ‘being native’ doesn’t automatically guarantee a quality use of the language. 🙂

          • Lukkai

            Absolutely! Pretty much all of the worst examples I’ve ever seen were native speakers of the particular language!

        • ChuckTheProphet Reply

          To be fair, their spelling isn’t horrible. By that I mean, most of the words are spelled properly, and the ones that aren’t are perfectly reasonable spellings for anyone who doesn’t speak the language. My guess would by that their first language is some form of Romance Language, given the way the words are misspelled. I could be wrong, though.

          • JW

            I disagree vehemently.
            In this world of ubiquitous spell-check there is no excuse for posting misspelled crap like “comculeins”, “intealgent speses” or “ecses engergy”. They’re all underlined with red squiggly lines in my browser’s textarea. It just shows disregard and contempt for the reader.

            What’s “comculeins” suppose to mean anyway? What word is that a reasonable spelling for?

          • ChuckTheProphet

            It is probably conclusions. And you are assuming that their computer’s default language is English. Last time I checked, when I tried to type a foreign language in my browser, it comes up nine times out of ten as misspelled with no suggestions on how to properly correct it, if the word is even wrong to begin with. Try typing “Je m’appelle Johannes, et tu?” in your text box. Even though I spelled everything correctly, all but Johannes is underlined as misspelled.

          • JW

            I’m not assuming anything about their computer’s default language, only about their desire to be understood. I switch my browser’s spell-check between three languages as needed. And If I wanted to post a comment in French, I’d either install a dictionary for it, or use google ( <- red squiggly line) translate and probably both. At the very least I'd make sure I'm actually posting words.

            "Je ne suis pas fou, je suis un pingouin. Il ya rien de fou sur les pingouins."
            I can't vouch 100% for the grammar, but google will translate it to correct English if it's not.

          • Lukkai

            My browser might have a spellcheck function. But if it does, then I’ve got no clue as to how to turn it on. It might be an optional add-on as well, I really don’t know.

            What browser you ask? Firefox.

          • Lukkai

            In other words: It’s an optional add-on that many people won’t know about.

          • JW

            It doesn’t come pre-installed with every language known to man, no.
            I think it comes with (US) English pre-installed, though. I’m fairly certain I discovered Firefox’s spell-checking because it just did it, not because I at some point looked for it. But that’s so long ago that things may have changed. And in any case, screw people.

          • JW

            Also, if I were to install an English dictionary myself, I’d have gone for GB English. e.g. I like my colour with a u. So, yeah, pretty sure it came included.

          • Lukkai

            “It doesn’t come pre-installed with every language known to man, no.”

            It doesn’t come pre-installed at all.

          • JW

            It doesn’t come pre-installed at all.

            Yes it does. I don’t know when or how you installed Firefox, but I checked on Linux and Windows, and it comes with dictionary installed and spell-check activated by default.

          • Lukkai

            I don’t have anything like that working automatically. Nor can I find anything in the menu, regardless of where I’m looking for a spellchecker function.

            And I’ve got version 42.0 for Windows running right now.

            I might have deactivated an automatic spellchecker, if it was there, at some point. Considering I need to read and write in three to four different languages, often on the same page, it would be more of a nuisance than helpful for me anyway. That still wouldn’t explain as to why I can’t find it anywhere though, since I certainly would not have deinstalled it (if that’s possible at all). Just made spellchecking optional instead of automatic.

            But we digress from the original point. That being that (probably obvious by my own example) you cannot assume that everyone has a spellchecker constantly running. And that not doing so does not have to be a show of contempt and disregard for other persons on the web. Rather unlikely, as a matter of fact, considering the person already made the effort and tried to communicate in a foreign language. And without using the highly unreliable online translators to boot.
            Pointing at someone whose skills in a language are limited and yet he tries, then basically saying “That was nearly indecipherable, so he’s a bad person totally disrespecting all of us!” is… not nice. And not helpful. Your comment did go that way, intended or not.

            And maybe it helps that English is not my native language. So I’m for one more tolerant towards people with limited ability. And also quite good in deciphering even texts with very bad spelling.

          • JW

            That still wouldn’t explain as to why I can’t find it anywhere though, since I certainly would not have deinstalled it (if that’s possible at all). Just made spellchecking optional instead of automatic.

            You don’t see it in the context-menu when you right-click on a textarea? For me the menu goes Undo, Cut, Paste, Delete, Select All, Check Spelling, Languages, (etc)

            But we digress from the original point. That being that (probably obvious by my own example) you cannot assume that everyone has a spellchecker constantly running.

            While I can’t assume that everyone has one running, I think it’s reasonable to assume everyone could and should have one running. Even if they have to make an effort to install one (and I’d argue it isn’t in most cases), that’s a small one-time investment that will benefit their readers ever after.
            Communication is a two-way street, and both parties have to work to achieve understanding. And there ought to be some sort of balance between the efforts on both sides. My position here is that if the writer had put in a little extra effort to be understandable, the readers would have to put in a lot less effort to understand it.
            Which is why I initially skipped the comment altogether.

            Pointing at someone whose skills in a language are limited and yet he tries, then basically saying “That was nearly indecipherable, so he’s a bad person totally disrespecting all of us!” is… not nice. And not helpful. Your comment did go that way, intended or not.

            Hey, I wisely kept my trap shut until Chuck claimed the spelling was actually good.
            There’s a lot of possible extenuating circumstances why someone’s spelling might be atrocious, and knowing which, if any, are the case would certainly make me re-evaluate the amount of effort I’d be willing to put into understanding what someone has written. But it wouldn’t change the fact that the spelling was horrible.
            And yes, I have realized I come off as an ass for a large part of this discussion. But a part of that is also sincere frustration.

            And maybe it helps that English is not my native language. So I’m for one more tolerant towards people with limited ability. And also quite good in deciphering even texts with very bad spelling.

            English isn’t my native language either. So I guess it takes more to build up a tolerance.

          • ChuckTheProphet

            I never said the spelling was good, just not entirely bad. Also, and this is just occurring to me, perhaps they were on mobile when they typed it. Who hasn’t at some point disabled spellcheck entirely because auto correct was getting on their nerves? That could explain some of the more “obvious” errors. It’s possible that they speak English just fine, and merely neglected to check typos nd words they didn’t know how to spell. Or, going with the foreign speaker theory, maybe their phone’s spellcheck isn’t English, and their phone does not allow additional dictionaries (or they don’t know how to get them).

          • Lukkai

            “English isn’t my native language either. So I guess it takes more to build up a tolerance.”

            Ah, true. I’ve also been a forum moderator for some six odd years now and have played browser games with an international community for a good while longer. The things I’ve seen done to especially the German and English languages defy any description. XD
            (By the way, I just checked. And I don’t have that option, as a matter of fact. Problem being that there are no language packages installed, as it seems. At least now I know where to find the option to install and use them should I ever want to.)

            As to spellchecking on the phone: I’ve completely turned that off. Simply because it made any kind of writing absolutely impossible. Auto-correcting at least one word per sentence. All of them written perfectly correct. And completely destroying any sense my writing was supposed to make with its corrections.

  4. Refugnic Reply

    Hmm…if they aren’t digesting, then where exactly are the humans they devoured going I wonder? Matter doesn’t just magically disappear after all (at least not usually).
    The process of digestion, to my knowledge, is the extraction of ‘convertible materials’ from the consumed matter (sugar etc.), whereas the remaining matter gets decomposed into excrements, which then gets removed from the body as excess. However, since stomachs and bowels are empty, this leave only two options:

    1. The demons she disassembled were beyond luckless hunters (which is unlikely ;P)
    2. The entire matter they consume is indeed magically converted to energy, which is stored in those nodes (and potentially later returned to the greater demon by means of consumption).

    So yeah, that makes a whole lot more sense…meh to think that I didn’t figure it out myself, especially since I used something similar myself…(okay, it was energy spheres in the sky, which blackened the heavens, not meatballs, but the concept was the same)…kinda embarrassing. 😛

    Though this begs the question: If the stomach and bowels are completely useless…then why exactly do they have them in the first place? I mean, I know that evolution has left us with a few things we don’t need, but somehow I don’t see these demons being the result of evolution.

    Oh and: Is the doctor sure that they aren’t just ‘unconnected’, because a blade had a little run-in with the connection? 😉

    • NotImportant Reply

      You happily assume they consume people whom they kill but all the bodies I drew didn’t have signs of feeding. People died, but weren’t eaten.

      Nature leaves useless things inside when it’s not sure if the new mechanism will work out. If it doesn’t (because of changes in the environment or whatever), old system works as a back-up. But if it’s not used in many, many, many generations its functions are forgotten and discarded, leaving half-useless parts lying around. And I haven’t said where demons same from or how they came to be so feel free to amuse us with some theories~

      And give her some credit, she is not that stupid! 😀 She checked at least two bodies for that, see how puzzled she is?

      • Refugnic Reply

        I never called her stupid, however, as a matter of fact, most available bodies would have been mowed down by Ada and Robert, simply because those two are the only ones with really effective weapons. I know there are other ways to kill them, but these people don’t know about them, so if they get one down, it’s more likely to be a lucky hit.

        Furthermore she said ‘usually’, as in: I’ve seen some where they are connected, but that’s rare. Now, if the slashes usually go to the abdomen, it’s not all that unlikely, that they would sever this cord during battle.
        That said, I was just poking fun at it. 😛

        Well, that once again throws up the question: Why attack at all? I mean, there must be some sort of purpose behind these attacks, otherwise they wouldn’t do it. If we leave out the number one reasoning behind attacks on other species (food), there must be something else they hope to gain from it.
        I mean, who in their right mind would attack someone who could potentially kill (or even just injure) you without any sort of reason?

        Meh, I’ll just assume that you’ve got that planned out and will leave us fishing for answers for a long time to come, aren’t you? ;P

        Yeah, I know. That’s how evolution works after all. The good stuff stays, the bad stuff is bred out, the stuff that once was good remains in remnants, unless it really has become a ‘bad’ trait, which would cause it to be bred out once again.
        And no, you didn’t. There’s one little thing that precludes them from being the result of a normal evolution and that’s something you said in the comments last page. Demons do not reproduce and the passing of generations is a vital aspect of evolution happening.

        As to where they might come from…well, the possibilities are nigh endless.
        The most likely theories at this moment from my point of view are:
        1. They are actually from a different dimension (hell), where they are the dominant species and enter through a gate. They might be able to reproduce there.
        2. There is a ‘mother bee’ somewhere. Current information points to this being the grand demon, who made a pact with Faust. He spawns the demons from himself, tapping into the unseen energies of our world, feeding on the agony of the people killed by his children. He would be the sole intelligence and the demons would serve as remote appendices of sorts. Them getting killed would feel like getting our hair cut feels to us. It’s annoying, but doesn’t really hurt.

        If we assume Nr. 2 for a moment, the demons would not just ‘kill’, but much rather ‘siphon’ the life energy from their victims, which is essentially their way of feeding. Once their work is done, they would return to their master, who would absorb the collected energy. All hail the queen of the swarm. 😛

        I’m sure there are a number of other rather likely theories floating around, but I don’t want to pour everything that’s going on in my mind right here and now.
        After all, I’ll still need some ammo for later, once more information are available. 🙂

        • Zenanii Reply

          He says, after typing out a minor essay x)
          About the feeding part, NI has already hinted that they feed of humans in a way that is not obvious at first sight.
          While you’re theory of them absorbing life energy from dying humans is plausible, it seems counter-productive to kill of the source of your “food”.
          I’m thinking they feed of despair (or just negative human emotions in general, I mean it is demons we’re talking about here) which would explain the need for killing. However, if that was the case it would make more sense for them to just maim their victims and leave them to bleed out, maximizing the ammount of energy produced before the humans “expire”. I have two explanations for this:
          1. Demons are stupid.
          2. Peaking the “despair level” exponentially increase the ammount of energy the demons can absorb (quality over quantity and all that).
          3. There are enough humans around that they don’t really have to be fancy with how they go about their work. If they kill of everyone here that’s fine, they’ll just move on to the next settlement/campsite.

          And I just realized I’ve been reffering to the animal-hybrids as “humans” this whole time. Eh, just mentally replace “humans” with “humanoids” while reading the above theories 😛

          • Refugnic

            All my more in-depth commentary looks like that, so better get used to it. ;P
            Furthermore, I only explored one possibility in more detail, so you can imagine what I can make of a single shell of ‘ammo’ now, can’t you? Little hint, the fanart section is filled with used shells. 😛

            It would seem counterproductive at first, however I do believe that they are smarter than they look.
            They are basically doing ‘crop rotation’ from the looks of it. Leave a few people alive so these can reproduce and be ready for another dining round the next time they come visiting.

            As for why they aren’t keeping them alive to maximize the output there is multiple options.
            The most likely one: They don’t know how. Humans are ever so frail after all. Just a minor scrape and they drop dead. And just why aren’t those stupid heads growing back like they’re supposed to?

            Another option is, that they actually are required to kill in order to feed.
            Assuming that they are feasting on the soul, they basically need to ‘crack the shell’ before getting to the goods inside. No kill, no food.

            Regarding three…I still think they aren’t killing everyone. They are killing a lot, but not everyone. And this sounds like crop rotation for me.

            That said: They are human. NI repeatedly stated, that the animal traits are merely for cosmetic effect and should be disregarded while viewing them. They are regular people just like you and me.

          • Zenanii

            “That said: They are human. NI repeatedly stated, that the animal traits are merely for cosmetic effect and should”

            Really? So does that mean we won’t have any awkward tail-pulling or cute ear-tickling in this comic? :<

          • NotImportant

            Haha not sure, maybe I’ll add it just for kicks, didn’t think about it too much.

        • Dæmon Reply

          Regarding the reproduction point, you forgot the fact that magic can alter someone or something greatly just by using it. There are examples of this everywhere, so who’s to say that they aren’t altered by magic, or evolve through means like changing features over time or possibly, and perhaps most plausiblely of these two theories, they shed their skin, have metamorphosis stages, or have a Pokemon like transformation, meanign that they are the same until one event causes a particular change. This means they could stay the exact same for centuries,.and we could be seeing them in their weakest form, and they’ll only get stronger from here on out.

          Also, there are a number of different ways that the demons could come to earth in different worlds. Of all of them, coming out of gates sounds the most reasonable to me, but that raises the question of where, how, and when do these gates appear. After all, do they just teleport, do they actually come out of gates, raise out of the earth (perhaps lie a zombie),or any number of other possibilities. Added to this, is the ability to come here able to work in reverse for them, and possibly more important, can WE go there, beat the hell out of demons, potentially kill Faust, and what would that do for the Grand One we are talking about? Will it be the usual, “thank you for freeing me, now die,” or is it something else entirely?

        • Dæmon Reply

          Regarding the reproduction point, you forgot the fact that magic can alter someone or something greatly just by using it. There are examples of this everywhere, so who’s to say that they aren’t altered by magic, or evolve through means like changing features over time or possibly, and perhaps most plausiblely of these two theories, they shed their skin, have metamorphosis stages, or have a Pokemon like transformation, meanign that they are the same until one event causes a particular change. This means they could stay the exact same for centuries,.and we could be seeing them in their weakest form, and they’ll only get stronger from here on out.

          Also, there are a number of different ways that the demons could come to earth in different worlds. Of all of them, coming out of gates sounds the most reasonable to me, but that raises the question of where, how, and when do these gates appear. After all, do they just teleport, do they actually come out of gates, raise out of the earth (perhaps lie a zombie),or any number of other possibilities. Added to this, is the ability to come here able to work in reverse for them, and possibly more important, can WE go there, beat the hell out of demons, potentially kill Faust, and what would that do for the Grand One we are talking about? Will it be the usual, “thank you for freeing me, now die,” or is it something else entirely? Well, this is something I would guess we still can’t know, at least until the heroes try it and find out. It could be a good way to kill someone for effect, though. I mean, unknown Nether-like realm, different physics for a different real, any number of ways that don’t even need fighting to kill off someone we like and then make their death a purpose for revenge. To be honest, I say that last bit because.it can drive a story down a path that no one expected, and if it were Robert or Ada, it could be a good way to make us think they’re dead, only to find out they were only taken captive. It could make for some good tension and a pretty damn good plot point.

          • Dæmon

            In fact, forget going to hell. If Refugnic has a good point for one of his stories. When Faust was making the pact with the demon, he could have asked for Ada to come to him, and then waited for the right moment, even waiting for a more intimate moment than when the two lovebirds were sitting under the tree.

  5. Zenanii Reply

    I hope that christmas tree is plastic, climbing it bare-legged like that would be… Quite painful.

    • Lukkai Reply

      Depends somewhat on the exact sort of tree, actually. But I see something else in that picture that will be quite painful rather soon! 😉

      • Refugnic Reply

        I do wonder how many of the guys in the comment section are actually jealous of Robert right there. I mean, how often do you get Ada falling on you? ;P
        Okay, not as good as Ada falling for you, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers, am I right? 😉

        • Lukkai Reply

          I really like Robert’s face there.

          Kind of a “Why do I get a sudden feeling of impending doom?”-face. (^_^)

  6. Marscaleb Reply

    Oh come on. Don’t you know anything?
    If you take a demon apart to find out how it works, the first thing you’ll have on your hands is a non-working demon!

    • Lukkai Reply

      Well, to be fair: The demon was already non-working before. It makes taking them apart a lot easier anyway. 😉

      • Refugnic Reply

        Yeah, grinding teeth and razor sharp claws swinging your way makes examining a tad difficult, that’s right. 😉

  8. SotiCoto Reply

    Why are her glasses shrinking? Or rather why is the top slowly lowering and becoming flatter? Inconsistent frame shape is no good. =(

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