Source of power

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Sorry guys, I’m soooo sleepy… On Friday we went to Atami to celebrate my fiance’s birthday, then to see Jogasaki coast on Saturday and today we took a train to Narita and spent the day at taiko festival. I’m dead tired. I just want to sleep. It was awesome though, great three days. I hope you enjoy Julia’s story, I’ll maybe add more description later!

23 comments on “Source of power”

    • JW Reply

      Isn’t Arcana plural? So “were” would be correct.
      But maybe “arcana” is as contentious in this regard as “data”. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

      • Alex Reply

        Maybe it’s a question of whether the verb refers to power or to arcana. I view arcana as plural, too.

      • Apologies for the grammar pedantry Reply

        Arcana is plural, but it’s the object of the sentence, not the subject. English grammar requires the verb to match the subject, which in this case is “power,” a singular noun. As a result, “was” is the correct verb form to use there.

        A good rule of thumb for evaluating English grammar is to cut out the extra clauses and look only at the core components of the sentence – in this case, compare “the power was money” vs “the power were money,” and the correct grammatical form becomes more clear.

        • NotImportant Reply

          There is no need to apologize! In fact, grammar pedantry is VERY welcome under the pages of this comic.

          Your explanation is very convincing. Again, I found myself doing what I would do in Polish – hence the mistake. It’s a tricky sentence and I wonder if I should just avoid doing things like this altogether; it seems they tend to confuse.

          Thanks again to all those who got involved in the discussion! I’ll fix it right away.

    • NotImportant Reply

      I thought about it… And I’m going to keep it as it is. Thanks for letting me know though, always good to double check. Happy to argue about it too. I feel like I’m making way more typos recently…

  2. NoriMori Reply

    Have a good long sleep, NI! Also Julia’s outfit in the second-last panel is great! It reminds me of something, but I can’t think of what.

    • NotImportant Reply

      Everyone’s complimenting her outfits hahaha, Sofia’ll have a rival (maybe in more than one sense)!

      • antrik Reply

        The only one of Sofia’s outfits that I remember getting actual compliments though is the one on the cast page…

  3. Refugnic Reply

    Quite personally, I think the ‘connected to important people’ bit is not all that much of a factor here.
    After all, they were the secret society with connections to all kinds of people (and the funds to make new connections), so I doubt they would need Adam for his ‘connections’.

    They would much rather utilize a more unique trait of his, a trait they cannot buy with money easily.
    ‘Charismatic’ is such a trait and that he thrived on the study of those arcane tomes and stuff only helped them keep him under control…well, up until the point, where he figured out how to seize control for himself.

    As for the origin of magic…in one of my own stories, ‘magic’ existed too, but did not in the more recent ages.
    Why? Simply enough, because the ancients rallied against the source of this magic, afraid that it would consume them if left unchecked and sealed it away.

    Magic, as they knew it, disappeared that day.
    Sure, there were those who could still connect to the source, but they were far too few to make a difference.
    The knowledge about how to do magic disappeared…the guardians of the seal made sure of that.

    Now, a whole bunch of time later, the seal weakened (due to an external event)…and all of a sudden, there was magic again.
    And nobody had even the faintest idea on how to handle it.
    The result: Chaos.

    But I digress (and I really shouldn’t advertise my stories here, my apologies. :D)
    Anyway, my theory is, that the current situation is very similar:
    and
    Magic did exist in those darker ages, but there was a source of some sort.
    Quite possibly, the demon overlord was this ‘source of magic’.
    The ancients managed to beat him back (probably with the help of those swords Ada and Rob now carry) and that day, demons and magic disappeared from the face of the world, for the biggest part.

    As a precaution against the demon lord returning, these same ancients disposed of any records they could find regarding the nature of the demon lord…wouldn’t want some fool stumbling over the instructions of the seal and how to undo it after all, right?

    But alas, they failed.
    Adam found these traces. He followed them.
    And after he had found the demon, chained and weakened, he struck a deal.
    Magic returned to the face of the world…and a horde of demons from the depths of hell with it.

    Thank you for another great page, NI.
    Julia sure knows how to ‘dress the part’ though, I’ll give her that. 🙂
    I particularly like her ‘librarian outfit’ in the second to last panel. 😉

    • JW Reply

      As a precaution against the demon lord returning, these same ancients disposed of any records they could find regarding the nature of the demon lord…wouldn’t want some fool stumbling over the instructions of the seal and how to undo it after all, right?

      That sounds rather ill-advised and overbearingly arrogant. If I’d been them, I would have left detailed instruction (somewhere) on how to reseal the demon lord should he ever escape.

      • Refugnic Reply

        The problem with those ‘detailed instructions’ is, that they’re prone to be found by someone who IS arrogant and power hungry.
        Who actually thinks, that they can handle it. Control it.

        Thus they unseal it and, much to everyone’s surprise, cannot control it.
        And presto, you’ve got an apocalypse on your hands.

        However you are correct in one aspect. Just placing the seal and leaving it be is a dangerous gamble.
        Kinda a bit like those nuclear waste deposits, where they were discussing on how to label them as ‘No entry zones’, so people in a thousand years will still understand what those ancients were trying to tell them.

        I would expect these ancients to leave behind an organization of some sort whose task it is to make sure the seal remains intact.
        Those would need to have both knowledge of the demon lord and how to deal with him if the worst should come to pass.
        After all, if nobody knows where to find those instructions in case of emergency, they might as well not exist to begin with.

        Unfortunately, if such an organization actually existed, they obviously screwed up royally.
        Who knows, Adam might actually have found the records he needed in the bedroom of one of those ‘connections’ that were mentioned.

    • shenshinoman Reply

      One of the best ways for a powerful secret society to stay secret. Is to collect other people into its organization who already have connections… few people will think anything is fishy is the up-and-coming rising-star happens to rub shoulders with important people. The few who do, will fig up the dirt, see they got there on their own separate merit from your society, and you free and clear.

    • antrik Reply

      You got that backwards: they have funds *because* they have members connected to important people…

  5. Dragon Master Reply

    Julia has lovely taste in clothing. The three outfits she’s shown in are very nice, and quite tateful.

  6. Doom Reply

    I love Julia’s outfit in the second to last panel. So pretty! I want that skirt.

  7. Regis Earsquake Reply

    I went back a few pages to check if this really is the same woman than that scared girl in the hut. NI you did truely a great job to create a character that gives a compleatly different feeling in two seperate circumstances, while she still looks objectively the same. Clothes make people, I guess, but it’s not just her clothes, it’s also her gesture and self confidence. You rarely see something like that in a comic, let alone a web comic. You did a grat job.

    • NotImportant Reply

      Thank you kindly! I’m very pleased with all the attention Julia gets and the reactions in the comments are great. Really looking forward to continuing the story and letting you guys see more of her. Thanks for reading and commenting!

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