Spoiler Latest Chapter Discussion Thread for Death Mage Raws

Life (Rokudou) gives cards, Man (Van) shoot (DK Horn) life in the face.

 

Life gives Rokudou lemons, Van eats both and finds them tasty.

 

When Life (Rokudou) close a door and lock it, God (Van) pulverize the wall out of existance.

 

“When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don't want your D*** lemons, what the h*** am I supposed to do with these? Demand to see life's manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I'm the man who's gonna burn your house down! With the lemons! I'm gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!”
― J.K. Simmons

“I been thinken'. when life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade!! get mad! I dont want your damn lemons! demand to see life's manager! Do you know who I am?!? I'm the man who's gonna' burn your house down! with the lemons!”
― Cave Johnson Portal 2

 

When life gives you lemons, do not give Van a reason to weaponize them.

 

What is the difference between a heroic spirit,familiar spirit and demi god?

 

I'm really not sure whether to consider it a good thing or bad thing that the next chapter isn't up yet. I just got done writing an intense chapter for the series I'm writing, then looked at the time and realized the DM RAW might be up by now, and then it wasn't. For some odd reason, instead of feeling let down I felt relieved that I wasn't going to start reading it while I had all that tension from what I just got done writing.

 

The chapter is up now

 

Familiar spirits are created by gods for various tasks. Most familiar spirits are just drones, but some develop a more advanced psyche over time, and they can even become gods. A sufficiently faithful worshipper can summon a familiar spirit to borrow its powers for a short time.

Heroic spirits are heroes who were immortalized after death by the gods that favor them. Basically, they are the saints of their religions. Heroic spirits are similar to familiar spirits, but considerably stronger and more sophisticated by default. Like familiar spirits, they can be summoned.

Demigods are mortals who are effectively as powerful as gods. They do not necessarily have all the same powers gods have, and they have physical bodies that require... maintenance. When a god permanently incarnates themself in a mortal form, it becomes a demigod.

 

Lots of plot in today's chapter, but no combat.

It turns out that Joseph was given transformation equipment! Van's design is both portable and stronger than Origin's native military powered suits. It also comes with a communication device, so Banda told Joseph that he's getting food.

Obviously, Avalon did not expect Banda to fly a van, and this was not according to keikaku! He did figure out that Banda can only be sensed with magic sensors and is too resilient to be damaged by anything the military can use. And he figured out that Banda somehow made the van similarly resilient. And he learned that Banda is using Balor's money to order food.

Avalon hypothesized that killing off the Amemiya family will rid him of Banda for good. To prepare for a counterattack, he orders his forces to withdraw from Africa. Then he said something I couldn't translate well about Black Maria and the experimental body. Assuming the worst of his enemies, Avalon doesn't really believe Banda will go on a picnic with his friends.

Banda got food from a South African supermarket, then flew to Joseph and the others in South America. Everything was explained to Derrick and the others. It turns out that lots of people saw Banda, so he quickly went viral.

Lots of stuff I'm too tired to bother with now.

The chapter ends with Banda descending from the sky, defying aerodynamics and instilling awe in the people waiting below.


And now I'm off to bed.

 

Im trying to draw banda but im having a hard time deciding if banda have a face and body of child or an adult? Need your guys opinion also here the WIP!https://pin.it/f4ckc6tuigqykq

 

I always saw in my mind this plus grin

 

Interesting chapter. The continuing adventures of Bander the globe-trotting death van.

Chapter summary...

First scene is with Joseph (Druid) and co, as they're trying to decide what to do. Derrick wasn't amongst those previously Guided by Van/Bander so hadn't known Avalon was a traitor. Normally he would have tried to contact home base etc but from Joseph's POV that would just paint a huge target on themselves. After a bit of discussion Joseph decides to break out his super top-secret item... a transformation device. And yeah, it makes him look like a transforming hero from a kid's programme (LOL). The suit also has a communications device and so Joseph chats with Bander and finds out that things have gotten super serious. Bander will also come and pick up Joseph and co.

Meanwhile, Avalon is considering how to respond to the situation. He's not any closer to figuring out what (or rather who) Bander is, but if he'd known that Bander was teaching Mei how to use death attribute magic he'd likely have been able to guess. Avalon had been very careful about who knew the location of his secret base - even many of the evil Bravers on his side did not know. However, Metamorph and the partial death attribute mages would know since they know all about the base and were thought to be safely brainwashed and now they've gone over to Hiroto's side. So Avalon decides that the best thing to do is consolidate their forces at their base to respond to the inevitable counter-attack. Avalon will also prepare his "trump card" (presumably the humanoid in the tube).

Bander and co have now picked up Joseph and co. They have plenty of food since they bought some from a country in Africa, including going through a fast food drive-in (LOL). Derrick has now been convinced that Avalon is a traitor and is somewhat in shock. Narumi is also somewhat in shock about the truth and Mei's magic attribute. Derrick thinks this means the end of the Bravers, since it'll be too big a scandal. Bander isn't sure about that but it'll at least be the end of those in the US who dared to attack Mei's house and attack Joseph - Bander will ensure that they are "punished". Hiroshi is following what's going on on the internet and Bander's gone viral basically.

Bander suggests to Narumi (referring to her as Mei-kun's mother) that it would be good to consider it a state of emergency until the current incident is resolved but adds that once it's over that she should keep any work related troubles separate from home (ie whatever happens, allow the kids to be happy). Bander says that if Narumi can promise him that then he will lend her his power. Narumi confidently responds that she is a mother and she'd do anything to protect Mei and Hiroshi even if she wasn't asked. While she now knows that Mei can use the death attribute she doesn't consider this to be a problem as she doesn't consider it to be evil. She also says she'll persuade Hiroto if necessary. Bander is happy to hear that since it means he won't have to consider extreme solutions like brain washing and hands out some prototype transformation gear. Narumi thinks to herself about the identity of Bander who is teaching Mei how to use death attribute magic - that perhaps Bander is "him" (presumably referring to Undead since who else could teach death attribute magic).

The final scene is with Hiroto and co driving in jeep away from the scene. He's been convinced by Metamorph that Avalon is guilty, since she could transform into Avalon and tell him details of private conversations he'd had with the person he thought was Avalon. There's various other evidence such as Ares trying to silence her. Hiroto has good reason to want to get away from the scene since he figures that Avalon might well bomb the place to clear up the evidence... and in fact the sounds of explosions are heard later. Hiroto asks where Avalon's base is and there's some discussion about various things but in the end the exact location doesn't come up. Bokor says not to worry as "God" and the "Holy Mother" (ie Bander and Mei) will come to help. Incidentally, Metamorph is eating a lot to recover the flesh she lost from when she was shot - at the time it looked like she was immortal but there were limits and she was hiding those limits until Hiroto came on board. Metamorph also quizzes Hiroto about his past comments that the death attribute shouldn't exist, wondering why he seems to be okay with her and the other partial death mages. Hiroto responds that while he believes that the death attribute shouldn't exist that doesn't mean he hates death attribute users or anything - he just doesn't want a repeat of the previous tragedies involving death magic.

The scene ends with Bander-van arriving. Thus the gathering of those who will oppose Avalon is complete.

-------------------

So, things are moving along quite smoothly. Narumi and Hiroto seem open-minded enough that extreme solutions won't be required (eg, brain-washing, splitting up the family). btw, Hiroto doesn't seem to be specifically aware yet that Mei has death attribute magic, unless I missed something, though he probably has suspicions. The main battle against Avalon could begin as soon as the next chapter since it looks like Bander will simply fly everyone there.

 

Safe bet Van will follow up in the end of that chapter/start of following or nah? Kinda tempts me to get 300 ost (returns a king) ready to play now at this point.

 

My question here is, just how big is that Van-van? So far, it's got Ulrica, Narumi, the children, the Joseph group bravers (4 total) plus the 2 pilots. And now, they're talking about bringing on the Amemiya crew as well.

They have 10 people (including 2 children) in the transformed Van-van right now, and they are planning on picking up 5 more people at minimum and quite possibly more. 15 passenger vans are things that are made, but you normally don't just find them parked in front of any given building. They're actually about as uncommon as sports cars. Maybe even less common. But, if he also carries whoever was with Amemiya in his crew in addition to the Death Attribute folks, he will probably have in excess of 20 people in there.

Still, it IS not entirely unreasonable to suppose he picked up a 15 passenger van. However, he seems to be remodeling it into a bus/airplane now. (BTW: Banda himself was not counted in that passenger number, since I assume since he has basically merged with the van he can pop up wherever he wants inside it, possibly with only a portion of his body.)

Also, I get the sneaking suspicion that Denske had Banda grab a van for the sake of the jokes.

I'm not sure the exact way it was phrased, but I think Derric, the Braver who was not guided by Van, said something about Banda looking like a child or something. Although, he could also have been referring to Hiroshi. Still, it's more likely for Banda to look close in appearance to Van, who is definitely looking like a child somewhere between the age of 10, where his aging slowed, and 13 which is his current chronological age.

 

But his body is big right cause it said thta banda have a small head?

 

When Balor/Johnny came to attack, they had 10+ people and a bunch of robots/golems. So they would have needed enough transport for all that. If we assume Johnny brought a van (mini-bus?) big enough to carry those 10+ fully armed adults and return with Mei then there might well be enough space.

Incidentally, in Japanese the word for "van" is typically spelt as バン ("ban") which is the same as the start of Bander's name rather than ヴァン which is the start of Vandalieu's name. So yes, perhaps not a co-incidence.

Unless I missed something, I didn't see Derrick describe what Bander looks like in full. He was pretty amazed that Druid and Echo were okay with Bander. The two pilots were shivering in fear.

Probably didn't help that Bander would casually bring up killing people when talking with a child. Bander made it pretty clear that those involved with the attacks on Mei and Druid are going to pay big-time.

I've no idea if Bander has Van's face, even a very distorted version.

Side thought: seems likely that Mei is going to be the equivalent of Van on Origin, longer term. She's already being treated as a religious figure by some. I bet a lot of 8th Guidance believers are going to do the same. In which case, I wouldn't be surprised if Van/Bander are able to Guide them.

 

Well right now i'm drawing banda so i need your interpretation for the face and body?

 

Hmm. Probably monster rather than human face.

Looking around a bunch of chapters: Has been described as wearing what appears to be a black fur robe or coat. 4 black arms, 6 legs. Long white hair. 4 eyes. Very wide mouth (from one side of the face to the other). Looks more like a monster than a living creature. Seems to be wearing a creepy mask but is his actual face.

Not sure if body is thick or thin. Might be closer to a nightmare version of Totoro with more arms/legs and wearing a black coat.

 

All aboard the Cat Vander Bus! Beep Beep.

I was very glad to finally get some decision making from Narumi. I've always been somewhat dissatisfied with her as a character due to the fact she seemed to never really have much agency in the story. Connecting with Amemiya due to a misunderstanding, Spared by Pluto for Mei's sake, having her children protected by Bander. While this wasn't necessarily the case, I've never really felt like she was a character who made clear what she wanted, what mattered to her, and what she was willing to do for it. It always just kinda felt like she was being strung along by fate. This bit in particular:

"Even without you saying that, I'd still do anything at all if it means protecting Hiroshi and Mei. After all, I am those two's mother."

Made me like Narumi much more. She can be in the good moms club with Darcia!

Glad Amemiya isn't victim blaming the death mages for being human experiments too. Another example of how to try to make amends to people you did wrong by vs Heinz's complete screw up in 200. Anyway, here's hoping Rokudo has Van's old body or some sort of other thing that can let us finally get the truth to come out about everything that's happened between Amemiya, Narumi, Bander/Van and the others in their various lives. (Honestly somewhat more interested in this emotional beat than Avalon smashing his egg head against the boulder that is Bander. )

Also wonder what Amemiya will do if he has to choose between his family's safety and still being a braver. It's clear Narumi will go to Van's "off limits" inner world if push comes to shove, but Amemiya's done a lot of dumb stuff to be a hero over his life, so I wonder.