Tomorrow morning I will be 53 years old. The latest CFB strip is up (from which the attached image is an excerpt). In the first and penultimate panels you can see lampstones being activated, using a device that holds two of them together, so that they glow. These particular lampstones are rarer and higher quality than Imperial issue. That indicates that this room, wherever it is, predates the Age of Dark Unmentionables (Refusaleth). This is an important detail that no one has any reason to notice.
The room has no doors or windows, but it does have small air vents in the ceiling, because I was lying awake at night writing this scene in my head, having breathing issues thinking about being trapped in a room with no doors or windows. Any time I have a visceral reaction while thinking up a scenario, I write it into the strip. Another example was the tunnel from an earlier strip, which the characters used to travel under a prison. I did my best to convey the anxiety and claustrophobia onto the page.
Etalun brought Daemir and Radish-Hoof into this room through “connective darkness”, the ability to move from one lightless place to any other. He can leave if the lights go out; they can’t. With the lights on, none of them can leave. This shifts the power balance, and unless Daemir or Radish-Hoof somehow learn how to traverse connective darkness, they need Etalun’s help to escape the room.
By the Law of the Unicorns, anyone who frees a Unicorn from captivity is granted a single Wish. So if Etalun were to pull Radish-Hoof out of the room to freedom, he would be owed a Wish. Etalun has a false headstone that allows the Empire to see whatever he does. He may be under direct influence of the Empress Nefaria. The possibility that he could wish for whatever he wants is a big deal.
With the proper Knowledge, you can look into any mirror in the Beyonding and become dressed however you want. This is why Etalun points out the mirror, and why it’s partly covered. All this is arcane info that longtime readers of the strip, if they exist, will pick up on. They might even get the idea that a certain “Dark Witch” will reappear soon.
Thank you as always for your support. I don’t know how to do anything else because I don’t want to. This is what I do. I’m the only one who does it.
Thanks for everything.