Unsounded

I've wondered about that line for a while
It may be something as simple as there being a common standard in both faiths about not doing something like that, but if they WERE non-dammakhert-born alds like someone posited and Duane's murder was a Ssaelit conspiracy, that could be a factor too

Which would have to be a fairly significant and well placed conspiracy to also falsify their "confessions"
I tend towards the notion of that they were probably some unfortunate fucks that were hired on for the murder but were otherwise out of any larger plan's loop. Disposable catspaws, maybe from one of the local gangs we'll learn more about later

So did he hate his older brother? I can understand hating an enemy after what they did but sacrificing your own brother for vengeance? There has to be some bad blood there. Particularly considering said brother has a wife and children.

I reckon the footpads who killed Duane were the Tanners. It makes sense from a narrative standpoint - the next book will be diving into the criminal underbelly of Alderode with them, Nary, and now Duane & Sette all mixed up.

It seems pretty clear that Argenti Sr. is tied to the assassination plot. He's seen talking to Bastion beforehand, he's a noted hardline militarist who is clearly willing to make sacrifices, as shown by him making his son a child soldier to toughen him up. This angle is nothing that hasn't been speculated before though, so there must be more to the plot. Lemuel's an interesting part of this - based on the conversation with Duane in the last chapter, I reckon his part of the conspiracy is actually as the bridge between Bastion's part (making his brother immortal) and the political conspiracy of Argenti & possibly Grandvin to preserve Ssaelit power. This is narratively powerful - was Lemuel motivated more by the politics to sacrifice his brother for "the cause", or by his love for his brother and desire to never see him truly die?

Y'all so wrong about Lemuel.

Based on what we've seen Lemuel seems to have believed that Duane turned his back on him and the Adelier family when he got sent to pymary school and that the man that returned is not the brother he knew but some upper class poser.
That coupled with Duane mentioning wrights being able to see into the khert, the realization that humans can theoretically see the afterlife and yet Ssael is doing nothing to stop the constant human suffering may have shook the religion out of him and made him sympathetic to the black tongues's (specifically Bastion's) ideas of them being fake.

Lemuel is going through a bunch of shit honestly.

There is also the possibility that he helped plan Duane's assassination in an attempt to save Duane since the plan was obviously to produce a thinking plod with a soul, Maybe Lem knew this and saw it as the only way Duane would survive after having made enemies?

>Is he having some manner of new revelation about that night?
The juxtaposition of the memories is likely Duane realizing there's a good chance that, just like he and Lemuel did way back when, someone just told Alderode "Crescians" killed Duane and no one questioned it further.

For a dude who spent his whole life being fucked with by politicians, he sure was slow on the uptake

But maybe that's why I like him

Watching his daughter die, him dying and getting reanimated is going to do quite a number on you. You then add on all he has been through up until this point. I am surprised he hasn't just given up or gone insane from the stress.

Also the unending desire to consume flesh.

>since the plan was obviously to produce a thinking plod with a soul,
Based on everyone looking at Bastion like he's a nutcase when he's messing around with Duane's body, I doubt anyone but him knew what he was up to.

It's been discussed in these threads a few times what Lemuel's role might be, but Cope is also pretty emphatic that all the Lemuel focused theories of that night are wrong. She seems to be increasingly exasperated/amused people haven't figured out what was going on yet. Lemuel clearly knew something was up and was involved, but I find it unlikely he was the main instigator or agent involved in the plot. Nor do I think Lemuel was too involved in the Black Tongues or their plots. If he's involved in anything adjacent to that, he's probably the other half of General Bell's conspiracy. One thing the flashback chapter has shown us, and this recent short one has reinforced, is that Lemuel carries a pretty large amount of Disdain for his fellow Aldishmen. Not just the Gefendur, but all the other castes even if their Ssaelit. An aldish agent that is "not insane like the rest of them" and wants to hurt at least part of Alderode is pretty Lemuelish thing. Even though Lemuel is definitely cracked in the head, he's at least just normally PTSD, not a crazy magically created human.

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The flashback chapter (his last day) is all about how he’s an idealistic fucktard who will punch a VITS councilor in the mouth and believes his people are above plague spreading political evils
Lemuel tells him as much

Dhampir was born in Sharteshane to Aldish parents. Maybe the assassins had a similar background.

Well, he kinda did go insane for a while, but he got better
I'd rather an idealistic fucktard who's not super happy about giving innocent people the plague. Besides, punching politicians is always a noble goal

Pretty sure the closest we've come is some guy suggesting on her tumblr that it was shadwe. Nominating Duane for composer to win the favor of golds, get good pr, especially for someone as well liked as Duane. But knowing Duane was too soft and politically unsavvy, and that the other castes would never really accept it. In killing Duane he creates enough unrest that they can use it to maneuver politically, in a manner that helps the ssaelit position best.

When user posted it to her, Ashley responded and talked about entirely inconsequential things like pie or video games or whatever, the kind of thing she always does when we're on the right track.

Shadwe knows Bastion as well. He could have informed Bastion about Duane's unique talents, and Bastion knowing this been particularly interested in Duane. In fact, Ashley made a very clear point of showing that shadwe knew Bastion, and has said that all the information we need is already there... So that's definitely got to be it.

Oh, oh fuck. Poor Duane. How is he going to react when he finds out that the person who orchestrated it was also the person who he admired?

A missing piece is Ashley saying something we saw in the second flashback chapter sealed his fate. I'm not sure we ever entirely determined what it was, but I recall people thinking it was his discussion on the nature of the khert and the afterlife with Lemuel.

ha ha, metaphor!

I think you're right. And we know Lemuel attacked Bastion after what he did to Duane, so I bet it stands that Lemuel knew Duane was slated for... something bad, maybe didn't know exactly who orchestrated it, or why, since he told Duane to watch out for Bodie. He found out somehow or another about Bastion and what Bastion wanted to do, and since Bastion's goal is immortality, and an undying man, Lemuel thought- great, at the least I can save my brother, and he can reach Ssael and talk to him.

And then he saw what happened that night. How Duane came out. The fact he was completely unlike himself, becoming, to Lemuel, a plod. The way his eyes were taken out. All of that. He was there to help Duane escape, and he was there to see just how not properly alive Duane was. So after he helped Duane escape, he probably sought Bastion out to attack him.

I also bet the posts above about Argenti and the Tanners having something to do with it are right too. The Tanners were probably the generic "Crescian" mooks, and Argenti was serving the shadwe.

When Duane finds out that Shadwe, Argenti, and even Lemuel all had a role in his death (and ultimately undeath) he is going to break.

If Lemuel wants to see Ssael so much let's burn his corpse and send his spirit to the Khert. Walk the walk.

first he needs to be wrighted

What if Duane was actually just assassinated by Crescians to foster division between the Aldish faiths and we're all just falling for Ashley's wild ride

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Why not both? Though from how we've seen the current conspiracy discussed, that kind of Aldish/Crescian working together is very unprecedented.

He didn't just plan it. There were never in Crecians in the first place. And now that he's tapping into his perfect memory banks he's going to see who's actually under the hood.
[Spoiler]It's Lemuel

She has a bias as the creator, being surprised none had figured it out. If no autist here has figured out it come close, then maybe the true events aren't as obvious a she thinks she made it - even with the breadcrumbs she's doled out
I don't mind it as we will get the truth eventually, but the "wow I can't believe no one has figured it out it's so obvious" is slightly annoying
I think it's also to make Duane realize that he, like any other Aldish, will jump to conclusions if someone blames the Crescians. And he doesn't even have the excuse of the Dhammakhert influence, but is still incredibly biased. There's a parallel between the assassins and Dhampir; they look like Crescians, but are Aldish who were conceived out of the Dhammakhert but people are quick to jugde them as outsiders and scapegoat them. Ironic as that is how Golds are treated as well

Its not, Ash has been clear about this. She made enough of the killer's face visible that we can see its unscarred.

Lem is definitely involved, but wasn't the active killer

Also apparently Lem (or leysa) nearly killed bastion

>or
Nay. Both.

It's this, with the added bonus that Duane gets to think good and hard about how he previously enabled and went along with Lemuel's psycho behaviour and how that turned out for him in the longer run.

Let's slice down everything we know, one last time.

1. Bastion was present the day of Duane's killing at the temple, and was directly involved in the assassination.
2. Lemuel knew at least something bad was about to go down. Tears in the eyes as he watches Duane leave the sparring ground.
3. Lemuel wanted Mikaila present when this happened. Lemuel reminded Leysa she needed to be there that day.
4. At some point while Bastion worked his magic on Duane, or shortly after before it took hold, an Adelier beat the shit out of Bastion. Current presumption is Lemuel with Mikaila dead and Leysa not being present.
5. By extension, Lemuel had to ask someone besides Bastion for Duane's pyramic eyes.
By extension of that, and connecting to Bastion's previous statements, 6. Bastion didn't know Duane was a success. Learning about him through the means he did learn was a shock to him.

Now there are things we presumed but things I think can still stand.
1. The attackers were Crescians and noone Duane recognized. Presumably the 'confessions' extracted at least gave some credence, and I do actually believe that they were Crescian Specops doing what Crescian Specops seems to love, playing havoc across the river. Its possible they were random agitators pulled from elsewhere, but they showed too much skill, daring and equipment for that to hold water.
2. This is not the Crescian SpecOps usual MO. Of the incidents we know of Crescians playing across the river, they have never pushed far across the river, especially to accomplish so minor an objective. Killing 1 priest, instead of a Vits council member or a major military figure, accomplishes little to nothing.
This leads to presumptions with no hard evidence. That is that Shadwe is somehow involved. Lemuel has no connection to Bastion to get him on this team, but Shadwe does. Shadwe also has the connection and power to probably communicate with Cresce and help smuggle a SpecOps team into Durlyne. (Cont for space)

Lemuel clearly knew something was up, and was perhaps waffling on what to do. One possible situation is he realized the hit was going to happen that night given what happened with Bodie or Shadwe or something, further realized Mikaila was going to be with him, and rushed off to stop it. Only to be too late and greeted with the sight of Mikaila fucking impaled and bleeding out in the snow and some flaming queer doing weird shit to his brother's corpse. Exploding, perhaps literally with some bombs or something, in rage, he lashes out at Bastion and drives him off. Considering the rest of the guys are captured, perhaps that's how that happened: Lemuel brings them in. What's a little unclear is if this was always going to be the case, perhaps with them being fed a story about Cresce being behind it.

Sorry but where was point 3 mentioned. That lemuel reminded leysa, that mikaila needed to be there.

Shadwe also kept Duane alive when Bodie wanted to kill him. If we assume the day follows a certain plan, Shadwe really didn't want to lose Duane early to his own idealistic cock up. Shadwe convinces Bodie not to kill Duane, sends him along late. Duane gets killed by the crescian spec ops, and during their work that night Aldish catch and kill them. Argenti Sr. Is the one we're shown extracting a confession. Argenti Sr. Is Shadwe's servant. Also, Lemuel was out on patrol that night and couldn't go to the party.
When drawn out like this, I think its possible Lemuel knew Duane was going to be assassinated, and intentionally wanted Mikaila at the spot when Duane died. He did not know Bastion was gonna do fuckery with Duane's body, and that sent him over the edge. We saw Lemuel radicalizing Mikaila, encouraging trust in Shadwe and himself, and somewhat disparaging the Aldish state. I think he wanted to turn Mikaila into a new version of Duane, someone who would love him unconditionally and be terrified to leave him and her family. A Duane that would never go off to Pymary school, never get delusions of grandeur, who because of their station could see the failures of the Aldish State and want something better.
Shadwe's portion of the plan is simple, kill Duane to incite the people with a common enemy, and put eyes on the Gefendur to discourage the restructuring. Bonus points because it makes Bastion like him more because he helps him do his pet project. This backfires when Bastion gets his ass kicked. Lemuel is the complicated one, and we may never have the full answer until we talk to him (my idea here is practically crack as is) but Ashley clearly thinks we can put something together.

Its a minor thing but I'm pretty sure it was mentioned early in the flashback chapter as a minor detail. Even if he didn't mention it, he didn't do anything to try and keep her from going home. If he knew what was happening he was okay with it. And its clear Mikaila's death was an accident, one completely unplanned.

Ah here it is, Lemuel made Duane promise to bring Mikaila in that day.

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I think that (and it's only tangentially related to this update, so bear with me) Ilganyag is the end boss big bad. Maybe you guys thought of this already or whatever but I just wanna write this down

We know that Bastion sent the silver and Duane to go to Alderode together, and while things got potentially fuckled at the Nevergreen, both are still very much en route as scheduled. Bastion initiated all this because Lady told him to. He doesn't even know the end goal of it all, and he's getting fed up about it. Prakhuta might have a better idea of what's happening, but in the end he's still just playing his part as Lady says. The only idea we have of what might happen is what Lady showed Duane in that future memory of his hometown's destruction, which she probably only showed him to keep him on the silver's trail. She keeps talking to him to make sure he's on the right path, too. So what's the point of her doing this?

We learned from Bastion that Lady wanted to escape the khert, but couldn't, and so whittled her time away doting on the Black Tongues. Then, she left, Maur saying something like 'Maybe she saw something about us she didn't like.' I think that she left because she found a way that she COULD escape, in a future memory that involved a monstrous first silver beast and that one priest Bastion experimented on. Duane has a tether to the khert and the silver makes an anti-khert, so there might be some weird technical loophole that allows Lady to follow Duane out of the khert, like Murkoph almost did.

Maybe that was obvious and I'm just slow on the uptake, but I think it makes sense. Bastion's involvement in the assassination I assume was to test of he could beat death and nothing more, but he unknowingly gave Lady a way out. Maybe that's why he's her favorite, since he unknowingly was trying to get her out all along

Where's Mikaila's corpse in this hallucination/flashback

>Lemuel has no connection to Bastion to get him on this team
I'm iffy on this part because of the top two panels here.

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Pretty sure that thing is his conversation with Lemuel just before the attack. Especially his mention of way to look into the khert.

> Duane has a tether to the khert and the silver makes an anti-khert, so there might be some weird technical loophole that allows Lady to follow Duane out of the khert, like Murkoph almost did.

It's probably not that easy, Ruck said that she would die if she were to leave the Khert, so there probably have to be some other conditions that have to be met first.

There has to be relevance that Sette was sent with Duane.

stabbeti stab :DDD

My theory has been that Lady I doesn't want to get out of the Khert and go to Kasslyne, she wants to use the Silver to make a hell realm over it so that whatever will affect her if she leaves the Khert cannot. The Silver is a dumb, mindless thing, and she's the perfect one to instruct it. She wants to cover the whole world in hell-silver, to create a sort of pocket dimension in between reality (which, if perfectly covered, might as well not exist) and the Khert. Not only can she thus get out of the Khert, but can also get back in if need be (being in the Khert is an amazing benefit, after all).

She's definitely been lying even to her closest servants. Bastion thought Duane was a failed experiment, but I don't buy for a second that Ilganyag thought the same. She kept Bastion in the dark about Prakhuta and the silver, and it's just not a coincidence that Duane ended up in the same town as Sette. Just as it's not a coincidence that the silver came from Sharteshane, or that first silver happens to be the same material that Ilganyag produces, or that she's encouraging Duane to chase the silver across the continent, or (probably) that the guy who killed Duane has the last name Murkoph.

She's definitely in end boss big bad territory, given how tied up she is to the metaphysics of the world and how she's personally connected to both of our main characters in ways they don't yet understand. But if this all has been planned in advance, I find it mindboggling how well she's been doing. She's not omniscient after all. She can watch from the eyes of the Black Tongues, and in theory she has access to all memories... except those of other senets, two-toes, artificial constructs and humans whose memories have been destroyed by efheby venom. Those are some pretty serious blind spots when we've got people running around like Prakhuta, Timofey, Ruckmearkha and a group of fanatic Black Tongues with a memory-destroying blade.

While she's made it sound like she was forced or bound or tricked into entering the khert, she nonetheless seems to have had a hope of it being like the first world. It wasn't, but from what she told Duane last they met it doesn't seem like she wants to return to the second world either. So I'm guessing that she, much like Prakhuta, wants to metaphysically fuck the khert in its ass so hard it breaks in the hopes of returning to a timeless state.

And the only real threat to her plan seems to be Ruck, whose goal basically seems to be hedonistic immortality.

I feel like the specifics of how Lady Ilganyag's able to exert her influence over the First Silver threads she puts into her Black Tongue initiates even from the khert is going to turn out to be rather important.

I think Lem right here is foreshadowing the eventual discovery of the flaw in the curse. You pymarically attach Roger Foi Hellick essence to something and people go berserk to accomplish it.

Post the damn gay porn.

>Ilganyag is the end boss big bad.
She's not, the khert itself is.

Her overall goal, alongside Ssael, is the ultimate destruction of the khert. That's what Sette was bred for and why Duane, a dedicated Ssaelite, was assigned as her guardian. Duane will realize the true meaning of SSael's teaching is to destroy the khert and liberate humanity from the tyranny of fate, and Sette is the instrument. Once the khert is destroyed, the Unsounded will be open.

>What was Vampire's backup plan in case those Plat kids had died before they could spark the khert fire?

>Try the same thing with his non-Plat wrights and hope they could extend the range of the fire far enough and strong enough to keep the curse out until Roger was over the border. Might have worked out fine but the Plats were a safer bet.

But he wasn't willing to martyr himself, lol.

>according to the asks there are still people this late into the comic that still don’t know that people in Alderode have different life expectancies

I’m starting to get why some people in these threads get all uppity when someone doesn’t get something. Is it just me or do a lots average webcomic fans not pay attention to the point where even blatantly stated things and events fly over their head? Seems that way when looking at other webcomic q and as.

Mikaila's corpse is never there at the end. It's missing in chapter 7 too. Someone moved it or took it, I guess.

This isn't even a case of some minor detail that could easily be overlooked. There are some genuine speedreaders who can't gather minor details. In time when we get to Alderode or see more of present day Lemuel, someone will unironically ask if Lemuel is a bit cracked in the head, despite it being obvious since chapter 14