Hey! Page 100 of this chapter and almost exactly one year since Lock(e)down started! I hope you’re enjoying the story so far… how much longer will it go? I’m not even going to attempt a guess. 
But I will say shorter than Bad Karma but longer than Worst Field Trip Ever! So buckle in because there’s still a ways to go before Kaycee and Co are out of danger (and believe me, the worst is yet to come). To celebrate this might be a good weekend to read the chapter so far, and please say hello in the comments section, especially if we haven’t heard from you for a while (or not at all)!
So being a PherNian should take some getting used to, but there’s no time for chit chat – Octo-Kaycee and Octo-Olga have to fight for their lives!
yo! still enjoying your superb work!
great page
what a gang of paranoid xenophobes! even if they have good reasons, fatima is well out of that atmosphere.
what an interesting power olga has. psych researchers would klll to have her on their teams.
i wonder which of the new-minted cephalomaids will fall foul of her own elbow spikes first?
do you create your impressive figures and faces from live models? photo references? mannequins? wax dummies? taxidermied people? or straight out of your head?
They come straight out of the rattling recesses of my brain!
Strategically placed limbs, jewelery and general scenery keep this page SFW. Well done!
Like I’ve been telling you on twitter, Xmung, the quality of your art is always excellent. ^^
As to today’s events: Children! The field of battle is not the place to go “Ooh!” and “Aah!” at how clever and powerful you are! :p Save it for the afterparty…
Long time lurker. I’ve been a fan of yours for years, since well before you started focusing on Magellan.
Since you asked for lurkers to speak up, I thought I would say that I like how you’ve gone against the tradition of translations being inside “” marks, and instead done a double-outline of the entire bubble. Very subtle, but clear. Nicely done.
Thanks!
Although the double outline of the bubble is actually used to indicate that they’re communicating telepathically… it’s been seen before in Chapter 2 (first seen on page 2.21) and also in Chapter 5 (see 5.53) – like many things I’ve never spelled it out clearly. On the translation matter I just decided not tho use the <> convention, in this sequence you might notice that Fatima is speaking “good English”, that is, we’re reading translations of her thoughts rather than her usually not so successful attempts at speaking English. Thanks for the first time comment! 
But the blue double bubble is only for Phernian-type underwater telepathy, right? It seems to be green (6.88) or red (4.286, 4.247) for Vostok, for example.
Is telepathic communication different from just reading someone’s mind, like in 6.65? Also, what’s the mode of communication inside the mindscape, i.e., before Kaycee and Olga changed to Phernian appearance? It seems that it’s just thought bubbles without double border, so perhaps not telepathic, but they must be connected somehow.
Yes, it’s different for Vostok. As for their ability to communicate previously, think of it as them being on the same wavelength of a ham radio. In part that was what I was hinting at with the lower case text (that Olga was tuning into a private channel). If it’s all overly complicated I wouldn’t worry about trying to over-think it but essesntially I’m just trying to show different forms of telepathic communication. In the PhenNian’s case, as we’ve seen before, Fatima can communicate with Kaycee (for example) but she can’t read Kaycee’s mind… so it’s more of a push telepathy, push thoughts into another’s mind, not a two-way or mind-reading telepathy. Vostok on the other hand can read minds – sure people speak to Vostok but probably only out of habit, they don’t need to talk to Vostok, Vostok just mind reads anyway.
Question: does Vostok have mundane senses – like sight, hearing, taste – or does he get all his date from touch (I figure those little tentacles have to be good for something besides propulsion) and telepathy?
Happy 100th page! (Great page btw!) And happy birthday to the story I guess?
“That’s pretty advanced stuff for a first year cadet.” Nicely spotted Kaycee!
Mmmm not sure how this will play out later, Olga is no longer in any way a first year cadet
Or they could just squirt ink all over everything and run like hell! Dragging Fatima along with them, of course…
I have a feeling it won’t be that easy, other PherNians can probably see through the ink or something like that.
I’d assume the other PherNians know how to deal with the ink, somehow. At the very least, they’d know to withdraw a distance and zip around the cloud, or to disperse it somehow.
‘though’ in panel 1 should be ‘through’ i think.
i imagine that all they have to do is preoccupy the two with swords, then fatima’s parents can’t get killed, which might give her time to figure out this isn’t real, otherwise all they have to do is kick but and then talk to fatima.
thanks for spotting that typo, I’ll get it fixed today sometime…
So, what they are doing can’t be kosher, since the second they see someone their first reaction is “kill.” If they were on the up and up they wouldn’t be so worried. Even monarchs can be up to do-baddery.
Maybe there is more than one nation of PherNians and the guards’ immediate response to seeing a complete stranger is to assume they’re spies?
Keep in mind we’re still in Fatima’s mind/memory here… so whoever these “guards/thugs” were, how they appear here are a product of that memory.
Ah, right. ‘The horrible, violent monsters who murdered my family for no good reason’. That kind of image doesn’t leave a lot of room for consideration of someone’s non-aggressive qualities.
No fair using logic! Logic is the mind killer, logic is the little death!
Somewhere, there’s a Bene Gesserit who wants to introduce you to her gom jabbar for misquoting her, Oz… :p
I thought the Queen was up to no good when she came along to gloat after having Fatima’s parents murdered and tried to get Fatima to betray the rest of her house.
I really like that second panel. Olga is completely at easy with her powers and she looks really sweet. Kaycee is still somewhat concerned, Olga has been bouncing around showing both remarkable competence and remarkable cluelessness, she is still not sure about Olga. I wonder if Olga will level with Kaycee if they get out of this, she knows Kaycee is trustworthy from her initial Gola telepathic contact. This story arc has so much good stuff!
Oh, as for the two thugs… pity the fools
All caught up yet again.
Thanks for all the feedback everyone!
but can their Magellan fighting style work underwater? dun dun DUN!
Delurking long enough to say I love your webcomic! Art, characters, plot… it all works, which isn’t very common!
Thanks!