50163: Whispers of Sorrow - Tuesday, March 3 2026 - 12:40 AM
Well at least that's a bit of an improvement over his pre-Haven self.
Will he be taught that sort of thing in team red though?
50164: Whispers of Sorrow - Tuesday, March 3 2026 - 1:45 AM
Given that he managed to briefly fly, he should do much better at the river crossing test, or something similar.
50165: oskarloko - Tuesday, March 3 2026 - 2:33 AM
Noah has improved as a person, and it's very centered about his powers.
Ciel want's to help Noah - i think - but also to raise her power.
I don't know if Ciel becomes independent or able to affect the phisical realm, what will she do...
Seems legit for now.
But Noah must be cautious in his new determination to help people. The Empire wants obedient soldiers, not good hearted paladins.
Veda's fool caused a lot of deads in Haven;
Noah - and Noel, MadCatz, Gaston and others saved the day. Or what was left of Haven; reading the comic and how powerfull the nigthmares went it must be an holocaust on the city - I expect no less than 80 percent of people dead
50166: anon - Tuesday, March 3 2026 - 4:03 AM
"trecherous"
50167: Whispers of Sorrow - Tuesday, March 3 2026 - 4:55 AM
@oskarloko: Haven? It was ensign fake smiles who refused to evacuate. It was the Royal cowards who declared Vader dead and disrupted the operation, preventing an early strike at Chernyl. And it was the JSP who repeatedly tried to sabotage the mission and were largely responsible for the entire mess.
50168: Straightbackward - Tuesday, March 3 2026 - 5:08 AM
"managed to stay in one piece" - being carried around by a muscle cat droidcatz.:P
50169: Tom - Tuesday, March 3 2026 - 8:09 AM
Holy shit.
Is this positive character development for the main protagonist of this arc?
Could it be that Noah will FINALLY take agency in his storyline?
It took hundreds of pages, but we're here. To everyone who hung on to hope, congratulations - it was worth it.
*wipes tear*
50170: oskarloko - Tuesday, March 3 2026 - 8:20 AM
@Whisper
> 'ensign fake smiles' had not the authority and by large not the means to evacuate the city. Veda appeared by surprise and requested it hours before the failure with Piccartio.
> I agree that Royal Guard could acted more quickly and not going to the burecracy and chain of command. But without Noel - who was picked in the HQ - I don't think they would have succeded. Chery was already sleep and controlled by the Hallowman at this moment ? If it was, they would have perished without Noel.
> The JSP are a group of pricks, I agree that they did more harm that good at the moment. And use the atomic bombs and blow Haven wouldn't stop the ningthmare. F*** them
50171: Whispers of Sorrow - Tuesday, March 3 2026 - 10:05 AM
@oskarloko: Ensign Fake Smiles could simply have 'asked' for permission - and the action against Malhart could have been delayed, if more time to evacuate were needed. It was her choice and the blood spilt is on her hands, none of her excuses will change that. The Royal snivellers were openly speaking of evacuation prior to that meeting btw: https://www.neorice.com/hoh_noah_1883
As for the Royal chicken impersonators, point is, if the assault had moved in fast and hard, there'd have been far fewer nightmares between them and Chernyl and as such, less need for Noel. But they stood there and shook. And so...
I don't want to do *that* with the JSP!
50172: Melany - Tuesday, March 3 2026 - 10:22 AM
To be completely fair to Veda, her plan was pretty solid for dealing with Cheryl's powers AS ADVERTISED. Remember that even Noel, who has more experience with her powers than almost anyone, was completely taken aback by just how bad everything in Haven turned out. Malhart himself also likely didn't anticipate Chernyl's powers to explode this spectacularly - I imagine he'd have told the children about the scope if he actually knew in advance this could happen. All in all, the Haven disaster escalated largely due to Veda lacking certain critical information... information that she couldn't possibly have found out because literally nobody actually knew about it before it was too late.
That said, about the whole "evacuating the city" thing... you realise an evacuation of that scale is a several days project at the absolute fastest, right? Even if Liutenant Marble was willing to comply with Veda, she simply had zero way to actually pull it off on the timescale requested.
50173: Saiko - Tuesday, March 3 2026 - 11:18 AM
Thus a reluctant hero is born.
50174: Tor - Tuesday, March 3 2026 - 2:54 PM
On the clearing the city part. That was absolutely just Veda making sure to pass on possible blame for the whole mess she was about to unleash.
Veda knew how horrible Chernyl's power was. And she knew Malhart was sealing it away. She is fully responsible for the disaster.
50175: Whispers of Sorrow - Tuesday, March 3 2026 - 6:40 PM
I actually feel the danger of the mindscapes is greatly overstated, because of this: https://www.neorice.com/hoh_noah_3309 He doesn't seem to remember that of course.
@Melany: The existence of Ypu Hallowman was a nasty surprise, yes. But it wouldn't have been catastrophic if not for the actions, or rather, inactions of Efs (and/or her superiors), the Royal battle-shirkers and the JSP.
Well, no, I don't realise any of that. Even if, if, the population was very large and the transport network utterly inadequate, they could, as I mentioned previously, simply have delayed the operation until the evacuation was complete.
@Tor: Tish, pshaw and nonsense! The mess, as you call it, would not have claimed a single civilian life had the evacuation been carried out. Or if ensign fake smiles been less proud. And as I showed in an earlier post, the Royal Guard were preparing to organise an evacuation from the moment Malhart agreed to the meeting. While the JSP of course, knew almost everything.
The afore mentioned scallywags are blaming Vader to avoid punishment for their gross negligence. They'll probably claim they were following process or some twaddle. That's not really a good excuse though, is it?
50177: Catirate - Tuesday, March 3 2026 - 8:11 PM
While Veda is mostly to blame for the disaster, and her request about evacuation was preemptive scapegoating, I do think it's worth noting that Chernyl's powers were both far stronger and worked in different ways than Malhart had experienced.
Chernyl's nightmares spawned in the dark or at night; Veda staged her "meeting" in broad daylight. She likely had plans to capture Chernyl in a contingency that assumed she would have minimum 5 hours to freely hunt her down. She may even have assumed she could handle one night of nightmare monsters. She would not have had any reason to believe that Chernyl's powers would create artificial night that allowed them to immediately activate in full force.
Utterly insane plan to begin with? Yes. Likely to cause dozens of deaths in the best possible scenario? Yes. But, I will give her the slimmest benefit of the doubt and agree with the "powers as advertised" post Melany wrote.
Well at least that's a bit of an improvement over his pre-Haven self.
Will he be taught that sort of thing in team red though?
Given that he managed to briefly fly, he should do much better at the river crossing test, or something similar.
Noah has improved as a person, and it's very centered about his powers.
Ciel want's to help Noah - i think - but also to raise her power.
I don't know if Ciel becomes independent or able to affect the phisical realm, what will she do...
Seems legit for now.
But Noah must be cautious in his new determination to help people. The Empire wants obedient soldiers, not good hearted paladins.
Veda's fool caused a lot of deads in Haven;
Noah - and Noel, MadCatz, Gaston and others saved the day. Or what was left of Haven; reading the comic and how powerfull the nigthmares went it must be an holocaust on the city - I expect no less than 80 percent of people dead
"trecherous"
@oskarloko: Haven? It was ensign fake smiles who refused to evacuate. It was the Royal cowards who declared Vader dead and disrupted the operation, preventing an early strike at Chernyl. And it was the JSP who repeatedly tried to sabotage the mission and were largely responsible for the entire mess.
"managed to stay in one piece" - being carried around by a muscle cat droidcatz.:P
Holy shit.
Is this positive character development for the main protagonist of this arc?
Could it be that Noah will FINALLY take agency in his storyline?
It took hundreds of pages, but we're here. To everyone who hung on to hope, congratulations - it was worth it.
*wipes tear*
@Whisper
> 'ensign fake smiles' had not the authority and by large not the means to evacuate the city. Veda appeared by surprise and requested it hours before the failure with Piccartio.
> I agree that Royal Guard could acted more quickly and not going to the burecracy and chain of command. But without Noel - who was picked in the HQ - I don't think they would have succeded. Chery was already sleep and controlled by the Hallowman at this moment ? If it was, they would have perished without Noel.
> The JSP are a group of pricks, I agree that they did more harm that good at the moment. And use the atomic bombs and blow Haven wouldn't stop the ningthmare. F*** them
@oskarloko: Ensign Fake Smiles could simply have 'asked' for permission - and the action against Malhart could have been delayed, if more time to evacuate were needed. It was her choice and the blood spilt is on her hands, none of her excuses will change that. The Royal snivellers were openly speaking of evacuation prior to that meeting btw: https://www.neorice.com/hoh_noah_1883
As for the Royal chicken impersonators, point is, if the assault had moved in fast and hard, there'd have been far fewer nightmares between them and Chernyl and as such, less need for Noel. But they stood there and shook. And so...
I don't want to do *that* with the JSP!
To be completely fair to Veda, her plan was pretty solid for dealing with Cheryl's powers AS ADVERTISED. Remember that even Noel, who has more experience with her powers than almost anyone, was completely taken aback by just how bad everything in Haven turned out. Malhart himself also likely didn't anticipate Chernyl's powers to explode this spectacularly - I imagine he'd have told the children about the scope if he actually knew in advance this could happen. All in all, the Haven disaster escalated largely due to Veda lacking certain critical information... information that she couldn't possibly have found out because literally nobody actually knew about it before it was too late.
That said, about the whole "evacuating the city" thing... you realise an evacuation of that scale is a several days project at the absolute fastest, right? Even if Liutenant Marble was willing to comply with Veda, she simply had zero way to actually pull it off on the timescale requested.
Thus a reluctant hero is born.
On the clearing the city part. That was absolutely just Veda making sure to pass on possible blame for the whole mess she was about to unleash.
Veda knew how horrible Chernyl's power was. And she knew Malhart was sealing it away. She is fully responsible for the disaster.
I actually feel the danger of the mindscapes is greatly overstated, because of this: https://www.neorice.com/hoh_noah_3309 He doesn't seem to remember that of course.
@Melany: The existence of Ypu Hallowman was a nasty surprise, yes. But it wouldn't have been catastrophic if not for the actions, or rather, inactions of Efs (and/or her superiors), the Royal battle-shirkers and the JSP.
Well, no, I don't realise any of that. Even if, if, the population was very large and the transport network utterly inadequate, they could, as I mentioned previously, simply have delayed the operation until the evacuation was complete.
@Tor: Tish, pshaw and nonsense! The mess, as you call it, would not have claimed a single civilian life had the evacuation been carried out. Or if ensign fake smiles been less proud. And as I showed in an earlier post, the Royal Guard were preparing to organise an evacuation from the moment Malhart agreed to the meeting. While the JSP of course, knew almost everything.
The afore mentioned scallywags are blaming Vader to avoid punishment for their gross negligence. They'll probably claim they were following process or some twaddle. That's not really a good excuse though, is it?
While Veda is mostly to blame for the disaster, and her request about evacuation was preemptive scapegoating, I do think it's worth noting that Chernyl's powers were both far stronger and worked in different ways than Malhart had experienced.
Chernyl's nightmares spawned in the dark or at night; Veda staged her "meeting" in broad daylight. She likely had plans to capture Chernyl in a contingency that assumed she would have minimum 5 hours to freely hunt her down. She may even have assumed she could handle one night of nightmare monsters. She would not have had any reason to believe that Chernyl's powers would create artificial night that allowed them to immediately activate in full force.
Utterly insane plan to begin with? Yes. Likely to cause dozens of deaths in the best possible scenario? Yes. But, I will give her the slimmest benefit of the doubt and agree with the "powers as advertised" post Melany wrote.
I'm proud of Noah