There’s only so much they’re going to figure out by studying Sydney’s skill tree like this, as it’s basically all speculation. Plus I’d rather show Sydney discovering stuff on her own in the field than on a whiteboard. Also, believe it or not I’d like to move forward with the plot eventually so we won’t linger here. This scene was mostly to show that they are making some attempt at better understanding the orbs, and also to introduce Pixel and Specs.

A link for anyone unfamiliar with Sydney’s reference in the last panel. That phrase that has for some reason stuck with me ever since I saw it. Yes the 80’s were occasionally terrifying.

Since I didn’t have room on this page to zoom in on it, here’s a link back to the original shot of it.

Specs took off between pages. She doesn’t have any particular experience with magic, she was just there to see what she could see. Now she’s off to see why kids love the taste of cinnamon toast crunch. That was a weird ad campaign really. They have cinnamon sugar on them, it’s a pretty easy solve. Trying to understand a culture by viewing its ads would at the same time be entirely misleading and hugely illuminating I think. I’ve avoided Dabbler doing the typical misunderstanding of idioms or taking metaphor literally and stuff like that, because she’s visited dozens of cultures and she’s smart enough to take them for what they are. Eventually though she’ll probably comment on a meta-analysis of human culture here and there.

Patreon supporters can view this page at twice the size! (as soon as I wake up and post it then immediately go back to sleep since Patreon doesn’t have a way to schedule posts yet.) $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like :)

Here’s the link to the new comments highlighter for chrome, and the GitHub link which you can use to install on FireFox via Greasemonkey.