‘Not A Villain Webcomic – Page 556

Colors by Audrey with edits and everything else by me.

Yeah, they can move their faces.

23 Comments

Something woke up and it does not look happy.

That’s not where your moustache goes, Wispy Woods.

Imagine Danni’s nose as her mouth in panel 1. 🙂

Oh, that’s awesome!

So blinding these trees was pointless.

I spy with my little eye, a new vote incentive! ^^

Was a good decision to leave the thoughts out IMO 🙂

*gets really close to screen*

Why am I disappointed that she didn’t even get a strand of hair caught in a Portal Cut?

Because you really like that cliche?

I’m very impressed with Danny’s precision in jumping in that portal! Bandit’s suggestion really seems to have helped her with her movement in low-G.

aww she did it

D***, that’s creepy

I definitely thought the red line was a new mouth and that it was grinning a creepy lipstick grin

…Are they gone now? Can we stop pretending to be trees?

I’m going to agree — she has to go through. If she stays behind, she has no clue/leads on where to go next, and the way out might just be forward here.

Of course, since the party could be in parts when one group gets here, putting a short timer on the only way out would be a really bad GM design, unless the point is to emphasize “Do Not Split The Party”. In that case, go right ahead 🙂

Ok, just went back and re-read the last few comics.

This portal is not a normal part of this scenario; both Kat and Bandit have commented on this. So it’s not the scenario storyline.

This makes for an interesting question: Is this being broadcast?

What will we see on the other side, and what will viewers see on the other side? If we are looking at a hacker’s portal, and we wind up in a “hacker’s den”, in a world where hackers equates to mass panic …

Did the broadcast suddenly run into “Please stand by, we are having technical difficulties”?

If TenKa is in any way competent (a fact of which I have doubts) they will broadcast on a slight lag, in addition to the slight lag required to give Paddy time to make edits to the broadcast on the fly. Under normal circumstances I would not expect TenKa to be actively monitoring the broadcast, but considering their suspicions of “Kleya” and that their golden programmer boy is in party with her I suspect they’re watching the feed like vultures. The real question is how well the civilian Watchers know the world, and whether they will notice anything out of the ordinary. My personal bet is no; the average LIFE citizens have thus far been portrayed as staggeringly ignorant sheep.

There is no evidence on which to found a reasonable hypothesis about the portal’s destination. It would be blind speculation. I therefore posit that the portal probably leads to the semi-elemental plane of ranch dressing.

I disagree. From the out-of-place species of grass. I posit that it will be a semi-elemental plane of honey mustard sauce.

So, here’s what my enormous brain thinks of this situation.

The head honcho of this forest area is an NPC modeled after a player that was close to Kleya (I forget who exactly; it’s been a while). There have been strong insinuations that this NPC is more than s/he initially appears. Many of the trees in the forest are players or NPCs that have been turned with this character’s power. I believe this character has control over the trees’ actions, or at least their senses. The tree in the last panel here seems, um… particularly attentive, by tree standards.

Given the above, I postulate thus: Kleya’s entrance into the Game (as an Erbana no less!) has attracted the attention of this NPC. This NPC is possibly a digital ghost, possibly an AI, but definitely no mere NPC. This portal was created by this entity, whatever it is, to bring Kat to it. Kleya will experience a psyche-shattering family reunion-by-proxy, lose her composure, and return to LIFE for a time.

I wish I could be more specific, but like I said, it has been some time. I want to believe it might be Kleya’s mother.

Her father not her mother

What if the real person behind the AI is still alive and using a different in-game avatar? Saisuke (spelling… IK) anyone? And further what if this portal leads to that alt account’s hideout and reveals the link between the two?

her nose looks like a mouth

took way to long to realize that was her nose not her making a weird little smile