Treewalker carapaces harden pretty quickly–after about a year, brighter green colors give way to darker and more mottled tones, and the shell becomes so thick that arrows and crossbow bolts have trouble piercing them. And for an archer to be able to land a blow, well… they’d need to be pretty good. And of course having a tamian arrow in your quiver doesn’t hurt.
Fortunately for Quinlan, he’s been hanging onto that particular arrow for nearly TEN YEARS.
Well, no, not really ten years–but YES, REALLY, TEN YEARS. In comic time of course it’s just been a few days, but that arrow’s gone on quite the journey with Quinlan.
You might remember–I mean, you probably don’t, but I’ll start with this anyway–you might remember that in Chapter Two, Quin left on his journey with a full quiver of tamian arrows:
But then, disaster struck! Their diplomatic mission was interrupted by an ermehn attack on Deltrada Garrison, with the warrior Feyn and two other Sratha-din attacking Quin and Dak in their room in the middle of the night. The fight spilled out onto the battlements, and Quinlan found himself nimbly rolling away from Feyn’s massive broadsword…
And it was HERE, nine years and ten months ago in January of 2015, that Quinlan lost all but ONE of his arrows!
Now, some readers have picked up on this detail over the years, finding Quinlan’s commitment to this one single arrow amusing–but hey, if you’re carrying a bow around, one shot is better than no shot at all!
We definitely set up expectations when Quinlan escaped Deltrada Garrison via the underground river and we dedicated a beat to him reclaiming that one, single arrow:
Also, I love the light caustics on that close-up shot by the way. Such an amazing detail!
ANYWAY, speaking of details, this long-game setup is exactly the sort of thing we love to build towards. No matter what happens, that arrow’s been on a heck of a journey–just like the rest of us.
We’ll see you in two weeks for the next page of this nail-biter of a sequence!
Well. I never tought about the arrow.
Moment of truth time.
And I feel somewhat vindicated by Little Miss Impossible Crack Shot whiffing it, even though logically I know she hit right where she was aiming and the bolt just glanced off.
Anyway this is obviously leading up to Quin lodging that arrow right in the beast’s eye. The question is, will that actually work, or are our assorted heroes and antiheroes up for one more round of things getting worse before they get better? I guess we’ll find out, same Western Deep time, same Western Deep channel.
Well, considering that the beasts shell is made into segments, and tamians focus an mobility. Maybe Quin will do a practical jump on to the beasts back and fire the arrow straight into the crack between the head shell and the shoulder(?) shell. Firing it straight into the back of the head.
Quin’s been saving that arrow for the right moment. After so long, is now that moment? Whatever the answer may be, all I can say is this:
“Make it count, Quin!”
If only the gang had played more video games then they would know to dodge out of the way at the last second causing the monster to plough head-first into the tree and become stunned.
My, how young Quin looked in some of those earlier pages. Guess spending ten years traveling for a few days will do that to ya!