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Story Friday April 20, 2018

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Kevin?

Mittens?

The magical mind of the wand must be either extremely confident or completely crazy to use names like that.

Either way, I am now prepared to eventually feel a greater level of fear toward Kevin than I currently feel towards the Golem.

I probably shouldn't be so ready to label my emotional assessment for this part of the story.  My opinions for Magus have bounced all over the place from sympathy to confusion to anger to annoyance and repeatedly back to confusion.

With the way things are going, we may find out that the Golem is actually the good guy and principal victim in this mess.

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19 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

With the way things are going, we may find out that the Golem is actually the good guy and principal victim in this mess.

I just realised. It wasn't a library golem per se. It was returning a book.

When the poor thing finds out that it is not only centuries overdue but that it has also lost the book, it is going to have a minor meltdown.

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23 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

When the poor thing finds out that it is not only centuries overdue but that it has also lost the book, it is going to have a minor meltdown.

If Ashley can find an interpreter, she could do a lot of commiserating about how bad it is to find out you have an overdue library book.

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Just now, The Old Hack said:

Oh Lord. I just realised. Kevin is a teacher. He is a teacher from an older system of magic. He can single-handedly revive an entire system of magic that has been dead for centuries. Or maybe single-wandedly. :icon_eek:

Assuming, of course, that he starts being useful. So far, he mostly insulted Ashley. I think he deserved being thrown.

Also, designed to train a fledgling wizard, he may only be able to teach basic spells. Still ... yes. Just Kevin can revive entire system of magic ... and he's likely not ONLY wand like that.

58 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

With the way things are going, we may find out that the Golem is actually the good guy and principal victim in this mess.

So far he seems like victim. He's scary looking, but is mostly confused and didn't do anything threatening ... unlike Ashley. On the other hand doesn't seem she damaged the golem ...

59 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Either way, I am now prepared to eventually feel a greater level of fear toward Kevin than I currently feel towards the Golem.

Fear? Ashley might be the least powerful wizard the wand taught, but I doubt she's first who threw him. Teachers are generally not supposed to take revenge on their students, even if they would deserve it. So, unless the wand is complete failure as teacher, it should accept the apology.

(It IS complete failure at helping with the peril, but that's not it's purpose, so ...)

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1 hour ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

I am now prepared to eventually feel a greater level of fear toward Kevin than I currently feel towards the Golem.

 

8 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

Kevin is a teacher. He is a teacher from an older system of magic. He can single-handedly revive an entire system of magic that has been dead for centuries.

Time to reassess the threat level.

This could be bad.  This could be very bad.  This could be interesting...

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6 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

If Ashley can find an interpreter, she could do a lot of commiserating about how bad it is to find out you have an overdue library book.

Do you think the wand can do translating spell? Or maybe Abraham can?

1 minute ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:
1 hour ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

I am now prepared to eventually feel a greater level of fear toward Kevin than I currently feel towards the Golem.

 

14 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

Kevin is a teacher. He is a teacher from an older system of magic. He can single-handedly revive an entire system of magic that has been dead for centuries.

Time to reassess the threat level.

This could be bad.  This could be very bad.  This could be interesting...

It should definitely be interesting.

It doesn't need to be THAT much bad. It would be much worse if someone like not-Tengu got to wand like that. Ashley might get mad with power, but she's unlikely to become dangerous.

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1 minute ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

 

Time to reassess the threat level.

This could be bad.  This could be very bad.  This could be interesting...

What, did the Middle Kingdom import interesting times from China back when no-one was looking? :icon_eek:

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1 minute ago, The Old Hack said:

What, did the Middle Kingdom import interesting times from China back when no-one was looking? :icon_eek:

中国, the Chinese name for China, literally means "Middle Kingdom."

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2 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

did the Middle Kingdom import interesting times from China back when no-one was looking?

No.  Marco Polo just told a good story.  (Yes, Egypt and Italy had a complicated relationship over the years.  Juli, Cleo, and Mark set some ... interesting ... precedents.)

And his story is about all that endured in the Two Kingdoms.  That game of his didn't prove so popular when the only available water was infested with crocodiles.

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4 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

中国, the Chinese name for China, literally means "Middle Kingdom."

Goes to show what they knew. Middle Kingdom Egypt was so named because it fell in between the times of Old Kingdom and New Kingdom Egypt.

Mind you, I doubt they named themselves that. It's hard to see yourself as in the middle of something when from your point of view you are the cutting edge.

(Hmm. The Cutting Edge Kingdom. That actually sounds kinda awesome. Maybe something from the times of high adventure when Conan ruled Aquilonia.)

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1 hour ago, The Old Hack said:

Oh Lord. I just realised. Kevin is a teacher. He is a teacher from an older system of magic. He can single-handedly revive an entire system of magic that has been dead for centuries. Or maybe single-wandedly. :icon_eek:

Yeah, that's a little worrying.

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Kevin seem so nice. Makes one wonder how he ended up being stored here.

I've never seen the golem as threatening. Although when they captured it, it seems it took a few gunshots to get it to stop moving.

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I'm not entirely certain that Kevin is from a previous system of magic. His design seems too modern and the facility did have artifacts that weren't inert in it. On the other hand, a wizard teacher doesn't seem like something that would be deemed useless unless Kevin is extraordinarily bad at teaching wizards.

6 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

The magical mind of the wand must be either extremely confident or completely crazy to use names like that.

Sometimes confidence can be its own brand of crazy.

6 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

With the way things are going, we may find out that the Golem is actually the good guy and principal victim in this mess.

Since the golem hasn't gone on a rampage tearing the place apart to find its library, it probably won't be a threat unless someone provokes it. (Hopefully uselessly hitting it in the face with a talking wand isn't enough to provoke it)

3 hours ago, jmucchiello said:

Kevin seem so nice. Makes one wonder how he ended up being stored here.

He was either inert at the time he came into government possession, or the officials deemed him too useless to need securing in a better facility.

3 hours ago, jmucchiello said:

I've never seen the golem as threatening. Although when they captured it, it seems it took a few gunshots to get it to stop moving.

Given the fact it's speaking in a long dead language and didn't bust out of its crate until now, it's probably been inert since a previous system change, meaning the damage isn't from gunshots, but magical attacks.

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Just now, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Time to reassess the threat level.

This could be bad.  This could be very bad.  This could be interesting...

That it's reassessing the threat level suggests that it isn't a berserking robot, it was startle by being hit with "Kevin" but it's not immediately reacting with force, so chances are good that it might attempt to communicate with Ashley first. The was probably no threat to Ellen either as the robot was probably just assessing the situation, it has no idea where it is, likely doesn't realize how much time has passed, though it might assumed that it's a different era based on surroundings and clothing. I wonder if it's capable of translating or magically learning English?

As for "Kevin" I was having a discussion on discord before this comic was uploaded about the wand calling Ashley a wizard and my thoughts that it could have been using the word "Wizard" loosely for anyone with magic potential. I made a comment that if the wand could detect magic potential, it should have also detected whether or not the person had ever used magic before or even awakened, since Ashley had done neither, I stated the wand should say something like "This must be your first time using a wand, don't worry, I'll guide you through it."

It was an offhanded comment, but still feels like it was the right train of thought considering the Wand is now revealed as a teaching aid.

But anyway, about whether or not Ashley's a wizard. Considering how being a wizard is a genetic thing with the greatest chance of being born one means both parents would have to be wizards as well. Could it be that Ashley might have had one wizard ancestor but the majority weren't, so it's not guaranteed that Ashley would actually have developed into a wizard if she learned magic, just like Nanase didn't develop into a wizard despite her mom and aunt being wizards.

Just now, The Old Hack said:

Oh Lord. I just realised. Kevin is a teacher. He is a teacher from an older system of magic. He can single-handedly revive an entire system of magic that has been dead for centuries. Or maybe single-wandedly. :icon_eek:

That seems quite possible, unless "Kevin" turns out to be capable of detecting the different systems of magic available, it could either select the most recent one by default, or maybe he could cycle through each system, "Kevin" could either be harmless, or extremely dangerous in the wrong hands.

 

Oh, it also just occurred to me that Dan now has an in canon "Kevin" to blame for when things go wrong. ;)

 

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1 hour ago, Drasvin said:

I'm not entirely certain that Kevin is from a previous system of magic. His design seems too modern and the facility did have artifacts that weren't inert in it. On the other hand, a wizard teacher doesn't seem like something that would be deemed useless unless Kevin is extraordinarily bad at teaching wizards.

Well, we either have to believe he is so extremely bad at teaching wizards that he can be categorized as useless, or he was inactive until the magic changeover and really is from an older system of magic; his modern design could be part of his magic, appearing to the wizard in a form that seems appropriate to the wizard. 

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7 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Either way, I am now prepared to eventually feel a greater level of fear toward Kevin than I currently feel towards the Golem.

I probably shouldn't be so ready to label my emotional assessment for this part of the story.  My opinions for Magus have bounced all over the place from sympathy to confusion to anger to annoyance and repeatedly back to confusion.

With the way things are going, we may find out that the Golem is actually the good guy and principal victim in this mess.

We definitely can't judge threats and morality until we have a lot more info, but my current read on the situation is that Kevin is abrasive and a bit insulting but he means well, while the Golem is confused and upset but probably not malicious. The problem being that the Golem looks built for strength and/or battle, so if it feels threatened or is inclined to fall back on violence in uncertain situations, things could get messy. I don't think Kevin is an immediate threat unless he somehow escalates the situation or gives Ashley a dangerous spell he doesn't have time to properly teach her to use.

1 hour ago, Drasvin said:

I'm not entirely certain that Kevin is from a previous system of magic. His design seems too modern and the facility did have artifacts that weren't inert in it. On the other hand, a wizard teacher doesn't seem like something that would be deemed useless unless Kevin is extraordinarily bad at teaching wizards.

It's possible he's able to change shape, though in that case he had to have just done so before appearing before Ashley, which raises the question how he knew to do so and why he bothered.

On the other hand, an incompetent magic teacher has a lot of potential for comedy, so I wouldn't be surprised if this was leading up to Ashley somehow getting to keep Kevin (or being stuck with him, depending on how you look at it) leading to wacky hijinks as he tries to teach her magic.

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Just now, Tuscahoma said:

Well, we either have to believe he is so extremely bad at teaching wizards that he can be categorized as useless, or he was inactive until the magic changeover and really is from an older system of magic; his modern design could be part of his magic, appearing to the wizard in a form that seems appropriate to the wizard. 

Just now, ChronosCat said:

It's possible he's able to change shape, though in that case he had to have just done so before appearing before Ashley, which raises the question how he knew to do so and why he bothered.

That would certainly fit a "modern knowledge, modern garb" type effect. If the wand automatically used it upon reactivating.

 

 

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Ashley being a wizard who doesn't know she's a wizard ties in nicely with her parents claiming they don't know which country they came from except it wasn't Japan. Obviously her parents are hiding the truth from Ashley, and it's not a stretch that they could be hiding their magic from her too.

And if Ashley is a wizard, she might even have been an awakened Seer by now if Pandora hadn't decided against giving her a mark.

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26 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

And if Ashley is a wizard, she might even have been an awakened Seer by now if Pandora hadn't decided against giving her a mark.

If Ashley were a Seer, awakened or not, she would have insanely high magic resistance and probably would have shrugged off Magus' spells without even noticing. Even if Magus has enough power to overwhelm a Seer's resistance, he would have noticed that it was exceptionally difficult to affect her and probably commented on it.

Another Seer ability is having a huge amount of magical energy. Tara the griffon should have noticed and commented on that along with mentioning that Nanase's aura radiates royalty, Ellen is Elliot's twin, and Diane is a potential vampire slayer. Also, it doesn't fit with Kevin saying she's weak.

Plus, having another Seer just randomly show up for no reason would be stretching plausibility with how rare they are.

In short, Ashley is almost certainly not a Seer.

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35 minutes ago, Tuscahoma said:

Well, we either have to believe he is so extremely bad at teaching wizards that he can be categorized as useless, or he was inactive until the magic changeover and really is from an older system of magic; his modern design could be part of his magic, appearing to the wizard in a form that seems appropriate to the wizard. 

He doesn't have to be extremely bad - he just has to be significantly inferior to other readily-available options. Piers Anthony's The Source of Magic references a number of useless magical powers (the one I remember is the ability to make colored spots temporarily appear on things - they have no side effects and last only seconds unless the caster concentrates on them). Maybe this wand teaches a number of such spells, while they have other wands that teach useless spells.

Or maybe this wand is just a really bad teacher.

(Most likely, IMHO, it's from a previous magic system.)

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7 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Assuming, of course, that he starts being useful. So far, he mostly insulted Ashley. I think he deserved being thrown.

He feels like a "grump" to me.

51 minutes ago, Scotty said:

That would certainly fit a "modern knowledge, modern garb" type effect. If the wand automatically used it upon reactivating.

And thus, the recurring theme is the search for knowledge run rampant in EGS. Good. Real good...

Real bad for collateral damage. :demonicduck:

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50 minutes ago, wanderingmagus said:

I wonder why Ashley's first racoon was to toss a potential weapon of magic physically, instead of trying to use it. Has she seen Harry Potter?

"raccoon"?

To answer the question: she's not used to being able to cast spells at all, she has no idea what spells the wand has, she sees a need for immediate effect, she's panicking.

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