Chapter 15 Page 12

Chapter 15 Page 12 - http://bit.ly/1N8GkUv

And here we have Bram's big spell! You might now understand what he was going for a few pages back, after Caldwell was smashed. I hope it follows visually, but the spell draws fire into one point, then launches out in a tight spiral. In his anger, Bram was about to cast the spell as a less focused lance without the use of the arcane circle. Careful readers will glean a bit more about how magic is cast. Without discipline and focus, magic can become wild and go out of control. Once Bram cleared his head, the spell was cast successfully.

Chapter 15 Page 11

Chapter 15 Page 11 - http://bit.ly/1KBkLpa

If it wasn't clear, right after Caldwell was blasted back into the rock he commented "I can't move!" I intended the reader to think that Cal just got winded or injured, but in truth it was his Stoneskin potion activating. This kind of potion doesn't coat the skin in stone right away, but waits for damage to occur first. It's kind of weak in that regard, since the first attack is not absorbed the user could easily die or take serious injury before the effect even occurs. That's low rank alchemy for you!

The style of Spellcross also changed on this page. The pace of updates up until this point... well, over the course of Spellcross' lifetime the interval between pages has risen and fallen. For the first 2 years I was highly consistent in posting 3 pages a week, with only one minor interruption I can remember. Then I took a three month hiatus, and since then life has been much busier for me. Working full time makes it very difficult to come home and pursue creative interests. So to that effect, I wanted to pare things back from my initial claim that Spellcross needed more visual fidelity. It's also become apparent to me that even with the quality being higher, I still haven't drawn in more viewers.

Chapter 15 Page 10

Chapter 15 Page 10 - http://bit.ly/1KbQbCr

This is another inbetween page, not a lot to say. Caldwell's one smart cookie to figure out how the gem works on his second try, though! There's also another hint to Caldwell's secret survival technique here, but it'll be revealed next page anyway so it's not important.

Chapter 15 Pages 8-9

Chapter 15 Page 8 - http://bit.ly/1j4SXUh

Chapter 15 Page 9 - http://bit.ly/1NzIA8t

In which Caldwell gets turned into a pancake! Just kidding. What actually happens is that the Ogre smashes its frozen arm down and the shards cut into him. I apologize if the action was kind of hard to follow here, but I started condensing the action in order to keep things moving. What could Caldwell have used to survive? The answer is already in the previous pages!

Anyway... this might be the first actual, big spell we've seen in the comic. Previously it was "enchant" style spells, with Grey's "Stone Gauntlet" and Sophia's "Ember Slash", or support type spells such as "Icy Bubble" and Junon's barriers. Bram fills the role of the proper wizard, casting hugely damaging "nuke" spells. Whatever this new spell is, it's definitely going to bring the hurt!

One other thing though. If your hand or arm falls asleep, it's not strange to bite it, right? Just to see whether there's feeling there or not? I asked a friend and they said it was definitely weird, but another said it was normal. Someone who hasn't done it before might be confused what the Ogre's up to here, but I think it'll make sense reading through later. If he just massaged it with his other hand, I don't think it would've followed well visually, y'know?