Song of the Eastern Sands: Page 22
The heist continues! Our trio slips past a pair of guards and makes their way through the mostly empty embassy halls to the treasury room. What goodies lie within? Well, I don’t imagine they call it a “treasury” room for nothing.
As Terria and Lutra share Sunsgrove, so too do they share embassies. This is easily noticeable by the (somewhat symbolic) guard pairings throughout the building — one Tamian, one Lutren. As the two kingdoms are bound in an alliance, the guards of both races work together as one whole.
Next week, I’ll be joining the League of Geeks crew in Boston for the Penny Arcade Expo to help show off Armello. We’ll be in a rather huge booth dedicated to both Armello and Push Me Pull You (a game that LoG is helping out with on the development side), so if you want to swing by and say hello, that’s where I’ll be!
This week, for guest art, I wanted to share this fantastic piece that Jerijune did based on the hiatus story from two weeks ago, Fall of the Evyn-din. In it, we can see Bevan prepping a dagger to avenge his fallen friend, tragically cut down in his prime. Fortunately, Bevan’s skills aren’t compromised by his emotional state. If anything, they just make him deadlier.
Jerijune is one of the most prolific artists I’ve seen, and the Western Deep material I see on DA (and now Tumblr!) always always always puts a smile on my face (even when it’s sad like this :) Jerijune, thank you SO much for your continually amazing work — I can’t wait to share more of it with our readers!
This page looks great even if there’s not much to comment on story-wise. I love the color palettes for this piece, and the varied angles of the shots. It really adds a sense of vibrancy to the piece.
I really hope that the nonsense up north won’t hurt the unity of Sunsgrove- but let’s be real, it will probably affect it at least a little considering how important Kenosh is to Sunsgrove in “general”. And especially because the current Tamian captain is involved in the mess.
Good luck at Comic Con, Alex! I hope it goes well.
And I love that pose, Jeri- and all the detail you put into the clothing.
Nice page! I like the colors in this one.
Now I wonder how Sunsgrove and Aisling feel about each other with the recent events in Deltrada, especially with Kenosh running off with the Sratha-din…
Oh, and good luck at PAX East, Alex!
I like your drawing, sir. Alex is right in saying you are one of the most prolific artists around!
You forgot to put the ACME insta-kill brand on the daggers’ hilts, though.
I did put a tiny ACME label at one point as a gag, but then I closed Photoshop without saving when I went to sleep so it didn’t get saved with the rest of the lineart. By the time I remembered, I already put it up on DA and Tumblr
HAHAHA! You are great!
Not much to say about this page, though I do love the symbolic Tamian-Lutren pairings for the guards. As we’ve seen, the two species’ different styles can do a lot of damage when paired together. The Sand Spiders should watch their backs; I’m sure these two could give Quin and Dak a run for their money in a straight fight, while these three have put more points into their stealth, lockpicking, and charisma-focused skills. The curse of the Rogue.
You’d think that the treasury room would be in a more central, well-lit location precisely to prevent this sort of thing from happening (I’m assuming that’s the door Asha’s picking the lock on in the last panel).
He, I totally missed Asha picking the door- let’s hope that’s not another advanced Felis lock. Rook seems like he’s not a personality to default to stealth, although he’s certainly got experience in it.
Speaking of video games; those two guards are likely successful graduates of the Snake-Fisher-47 School for Sentries, Guards and Associated Security Personnel.
The are diligently obeying the central tenets of guarding:
Keep your facility nice and gloomy.
Ensure you stand where intruders can see you.
Look in the same direction as your fellow guard.
If you hear/see something suspicious proclaim “What was that?” and instead of raising the alarm follow it with “It must’ve been nothing” or “I must be hearing/seeing things”.
Never, ever turn around. Ever.
Great. Now I’m imagining alternate scenes where they a) snuck past them in boxes or crates, b) took one of them out, changed clothes, and took the guard’s place for the entire mission without making things awkward, or c) made the guards pass out from being strangled or something…
*”they” in a and b refer to the guards, just so you know
*Spoiler Alert, the Vault door is outfitted with a Felis lock*
Asha – “Oh for the love of *censored*”
I dig the interior design though. I cant believe that it looks almost exactly like how I pictured it in my head. Complete with what looks like a ballroom hall with a chandelier.
And Jerijune’s art always manages to be so enjoyable to look at. Poor Kraith, alas we hardly knew ye.
The details and composition are so on point! Love the atmosphere!
Also Jerijune you’re breaking my heart with that fan-art
Had a thought: if every character is a placental mammal – mostly carnivorans at that -, does that mean that pretty much every female character in Dunia is liable to get pyometra?
Whelp.
Now I know what pyometra is.
I looked up the term on google, but the webpage I opened to get the general idea had only one image, which took a bit to load.
For a moment, my curiosity stirred towards waiting and looking at the image once it loaded, but then, in a sudden moment of clarity, I decided that NO, I would not gaze upon it!
I raised my fist to partially block the screen over the part where the image was before it was able to reveal itself, and the page’s text without even so much as a graphical glimpse.
Nice try, (irreproducible name), but your plan to make look at infected animal privates has failed!
It seems like that disease only appears in certain animals, and only those with a certain hormonal imbalance. Also, remember that we have child readers. (hey birb)
Love this page!
The heist seems to be going okay so far… but I still have a bad feeling that they’re about to get burned badly. Also, while Rook at least seems to be wearing some sort of armor, why aren’t they carrying weapons? And how are they going to carry all that treasure back with them to the tavern?
And why isn’t my profile pic showing? -_-
Pretty sure Beck has a knife on her- the same one she used to crack the chest open a few pages back.
So diligently guarding an absolutely empty ballroom, those two are.
Agree with what’s been said about the wonderful shading and interior design of this page. The one thing that went through my mind more than anything else, however, was worry over whether those big unshod paws of theirs (well, Rook and Beck, at least) would be making loud slapping sounds against those smooth hard floors. And, the way Jerome portrays these characters, I would think inadvertant claw-clacks against the stone might be an issue too, even if their furred feet would muffle the sound of their actual steps. Maybe stealthy pawsocks would be in order? I gave those to an assassin character of mine once – not that my audience on that occasion seemed to appreciate my efforts.
Not so sure about that, because paw pads are smaller than the area of the entire foot and the fur would muffle the sound. Also, they can probably retract the claws.
Yeah, so long as you aren’t doing a full-blown sprint, you can manage the sound of running pretty well, barefoot or in shoes. I imagine Theo’s probably drilled our Sand Spiders before on this, too X)
Love everything!
Had a funny thought, what if they break in and the treasury includes some rare tea for Theo?
Ah that’s the secret! That’s why Theo was so adamant about this job! We were all right to mistrust his intentions!
If you think so VarVau
(I have no idea what you’re referencing, but it sounds dramatic)
That would be a reference to this:
“Cave Johnson here, bad news and good news. Bad new is, turns out mixing praying mantis DNA with humans didn’t turn out quite as well as planned. The good news is, now you have an army of mantis-men to test our military weapons! Grab a rifle and step right up through test chamber!”
I also loved the commenter on youtube who wrote “Now get me more pictures of Spiderman!”
I’m getting vibes of “This was too easy” or “I have a bad feeling about this. Something will not go as planned. Good luck to the thieves.