The Way Back Home 169
└ posted on Friday, 5 October 2018, by Novil
- Eldor: One wrong word to Lilith and a fate worse than death awaits your fiancé!
- Eldor: I’m back, Lilith! And look who I brought!
- Viviana: Hello, Lili.
- Lilith: Vi…vi?
- Eldor: As you can see she’s fine. And your other friends are fine too! … Apart from a bloody nose maybe.
- Lilith: You’re telling the truth…
- Eldor: Of course, I am! I don’t know where Sandril is, though.
- Lilith: He’s far away, very far away.
- Eldor: If you say so… Do you want to give the spell another try now?
- Lilith: Yes…
- Eldor: Excellent! Viviana, sit here!
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That’s a very un-Eldor facial expression in panel 2! He’s behaving a little manic on the rest of the page, too. The pressure of being potentially just minutes away from his grand goal (and a few pages away from the end of the chapter, I assume) must be getting to him.
“Yes. The bottom of this tower is very, very far from here.”
So this page reminded me of the training dummy we saw way back in the Red Hall. There was an interesting line from back then that I can’t help but find possibly relevant now:
Hel Rekdal: Did any of you know that one can destroy the fabric of the Bluestream with a lousy Wave Shield?
http://www.sandraandwoo.com/gaia/2012/01/17/the-red-hall-032/
@ Lucario To ven the shield and fact the only one who would have theoretical chance to breach it is exhausted and would likely have to drain big tree… I would say its too far away.
As far as Eldors composure… Well right now things are somewhat of his rails. And he is nervous from improvization.
One can expect that after eons of careful planning…
“To compensate for vertical movement being more difficult and requiring more energy than horisontal movement, I multiply all vertical distances by 500. Sandril is nowhere close to us. Did you also know that our current altitude puts us in the stratosphere?”
“Very far away. And he definitely didn’t get the magic sword. Yup, plan’s going perfectly. You can relax.”
C30 wrote:
I guess that’s him covering up his anger and agitation about the attack (as still shown in his face in Panel 1) and trying to fake a friendly and cheerful smile … and failing miserably at it, so the smile rather turns out as a maniac grin.
He is very far away, definitely further than a yard…
@StarCreator Dang, that’s some long distance foreshadowing. Like, ridiculously long distance!
C30 wrote:
I think he’s acting up to show how nice a guy he really is to the one person that matters to him … rather the one person that – at this very moment – matters to his PLANS.
He’s wearing that “manic” smile only when Lilli can see him. Not when he’s handling Vivi.
By the way: I get an increasing end-of-chapter feeling about this. Everybody is were they’re needed. San is recovering. Lili is facing what probably is her final test. The group around Ilias and Sandril is making plans and found a suspicious weakness in that shield …
what if sandril really IS far away. i do remember they faked liliths death. And there also was that prison escape with a diversion…
Thus the fate of Gaia hangs on the ability of the main characters to complete their tasks while fatigued.
One red bull to save the world.
clickbait wrote:
I wonder what would happen if the group manages to collapse the shield around the tower at the exact same moment that Lilith collapses the shield around that training dummy? I agree it is obvious that Lili isn’t going to cast Eldor’s big mcguffin plot drivin’ spell just yet and this is just the final exam before she is allowed to get started on the real job.
Well, this answers a couple of things. 1) Eldor hasn’t been keeping track of Sandril’s whereabouts. 2) He also hasn’t engineered the coming together of all the main characters, as they thought.
And he’s clearly nervous and on edge. First time we’ve ever seen that. Things are coming down to the wire, and he’s tense about it.
@ OneTimeCommenter:
well San can likely do it, but I expect only at cost of draining the whole tree of power… which would likely ruin Eldors plan since he likely wants to tap into it too…
Probably in a galaxy far. far away, hmm?
Crestlinger wrote:
Man, I hate having to roll with points of exhaustion.
Starting to wonder if Lilith’s had been planning around his plan in order to get the jump on him soon.
I wonder if Eldor fully believes her about Sandril though…
His face in the second panel is kind of adorable~ “I don’t really remember what it’s like to be excited about something but I know *you’re* excited so I’ll be excited too!”
Lucario wrote:
I’m not sure Eldor cares. For a villain, his plans are mostly lacking in villainy. I mean yes, the larger results of what he does are probably villainous but there’s the whole placing people under suspended animation thing. He could destroy entire towns and have the people not even harmed.
I think it’s interesting that she’s now got an audience while she throws around spells.
C’mon Vivi, cheer her on!
I think all three young ladies who were conceived on the same day have to be together for a reason. San is close by; Vivi and Lilith are together. It may be that San is needed, too, for Lili to cast her spell–whether or not it’s the spell Eldor wants her to cast. (See how he says, “Your spell”? Lilith is good at creating her own spells from things she’s learned.)
That weakness in the shield spell is what’s going to bring all three of them (and assorted friends and add-ons) to Lilith when she needs them.
@ Tikatu:
Gah! I thought he said “Your spell”. My bad!
@ StarCreator:
I’ve been thinking about his line since before Eldor went to fetch Vivi…
Paeris Kiran wrote:
If Eldor speaks the truth and knows where the others are, it means that he has lost track of Sandril. That ought to worry him.
maybe the sword is jamming up eldor somehow
what about this: in frame 4 lili says something to eldor with that stonerriffic expression on her face and he just says, “if you think so”. same thing here in frame 4: http://www.sandraandwoo.com/gaia/2017/02/14/monster-086/
Alright, did Eldor ever give a reason that the spell had to be cast now? It seems like he rushing into things uncharacteristically, when he could use some sleep and a revision of his plan that’s falling apart at the seems.
goono bononnen wrote:
Eldor didn’t know that Viviana is in prison, Lilith told him… So there is nothing to jam, though I would also expect him to have some kind of detection devices in his own dwelling, but Sandril just managed to barge in through the door, so something is definitely wrong there with Eldor’s defenses…
Pka Dusk wrote:
Well he asked her to cast it before he went for Vivi… so Lilith got some time to rest… there is no reason for him to delay actually.