AWKWARD ZOMBIE

If the shitheaded little girl who's been lying to you constantly and dragging you to a veritable hell on earth against your wishes suddenly started reminding you of the slaughter of your precious daughter, might you not be a bit peeved?

Well, when you put it that way...

Three pages at once. The feel train hit hard.

That was pretty rough. I'm constantly impressed with how Ashley can maintain such a good update schedule. Anyway, onto theories. Some guys on /co/ are talking about how the Crescians that killed Duane were actually glamored Aldishmen. Why would Crescians care about what they do to a cleric? (Ch. 7 p. 108). Why would they call him "pissmop", a very specific insult for his Aldish caste?

I figured it was a given that his murder was a black flag operation. Check out page 91. That's the ninja that ends up subduing Duane, looking much more Aldish than he does later during the fight. The question is, who organized it? The obvious answer is Councilor Dickhead, the guy he slugged. However, I think it was Lemuel. Lemon wanted open war with the Gefendur, and a Crescian assassination of an Aldish councilor would certainly move both countries toward open engagement. Not to mention Lemuel's just full of foreshadowing in his brief appearances. Page 83 shows him dropping an incredibly un-subtle hint that he's got some sort of scheme, and page 87 shows clear guilt, like he knows what's going to happen to Duane.

That makes sense, but I keep getting confused about how long it is between Duane's murder and the start of their adventure to go get Stockyard to give up his cut. I know there's definite time gap, but I'm not sure what if it's a couple of years or what.

As far as I can tell, without understanding exactly what process Duane underwent to become a galit, we won't know how long it took for war to break out after Duane's death, if that was indeed what ignited it. Duane seems to have his "condition" under control by story's beginning, though, so he has obviously had time to come to terms with it and take command of his situation.

As for what truly happened to him, there have been pretty heavy hints pointing at the guy who gave Sette the magical doohicky that lets her control Duane at night. Winalils was his name, I think? A confirmed Black Tongue working within the Weeping Plague quarantine in Alderode, friendly with Shadwe himself. Sounds like a prime candidate for being personally responsible for "resurrecting" Duane. It seems obvious to me that Duane's intellectual undead nature is a result of some Black Tongue research. We know he is aware of Duane and his condition from Sette's flashback (though of course it's been shown that her flashbacks can be less than accurate).

Winalils also saved that girl that the Red Berry Boys had way back in book 2, and it was a Black Tongue named Delicieu that put the silver in them. He seems to be connected to a lot of things.

One of the things I'd love to see more of is What this is about. The sea is supposed to be a very mysterious thing since the khert does't travel over it, so I'd love to see some more explanation as to why Jivi was hallucinating a crazy oceany fish-lady.

No Unsounded for a week.

How will I survive.

He referred to her as "ma" so she's more significant to him than you think.

Maybe his mom was a badass pirate.

New page is up.

So Duane acts a bit weird for a second there and it looks like we may find out how he got brought back.

Wouldn't it just figure if Mikaila was reincarnated as Sette.

That'd be extremely typical.

It would be interesting if Sette's dad is more than he seems and knew that. Which would be why he sent Sette on this trip and made Duane go with her.

Sette has her own mysterious origin thing going on with her tail and super strong nose that can even smell pymary.

Also, while I don't believe the story of Sette's mom one bit, the thing about Water Women makes me think of the the dream/nightmare that Jivi had in Chapter 3 again.