Ah, she was a goddess anyway. Or a video game boss from the world of Tobi. Yay magical world breaking!

...Oh? Is Veda a nightmare herself...?

Well, Veda is hindu scripture, so...

Good lore bro

Hmm, "isn't bound to the same Earthly Rules"... how to take that? Assuming she's *not* a nightmare herself, could Veda be a "dungeon boss" that slithered out of Tobi's world at some point? Noel may not be able to see the exact same sort of things the Paladin can, given the spirits he claims to have encountered in the past were "rarely sentient" the way Infinite's obviously was, so he wouldn't necessarily be able to tell. But if dungeon monsters equate to spirits of Pandemonium, Veda shouldn't have a physical form, and if said spirits really are the source of all pandemonium magic, she'd presumably have come up as magic positive during that test back in the empire. Though if Nail turns out to be a ghoul, with their RL video-game system, that might help explain why he's following her around...

Regardless, if Veda is as powerful as Nail is implying, that also begs the question of why she's done... any of this, honestly. Joined up with the Empire, sought out Chernyl, took a personal interest in Noah... what is her actual end goal in all of this?

Ph'nglui mglw'nfah Lina Veda R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn?

Plot twist: Noah recovered a while ago, but realised that his current condition means he doesn't have to move or talk and doesn't want to tell anyone otherwise or they might make him do stuff.

Uhh, is Nail about to cut Noel?

Also, Veda being The Hallowman is looking more and more likely by the second, to me.

Why is nail caressing Noel's face with his knife

@noname mglw'nafh, not mglw'nfah!

Let's be systematic here, what are the options for beings not "bound to the same earthly rules" and yet having physical bodies?
Ghouls, Dungeon Bosses, Golems maybe (such as Three and Paladin's minions), Statues (like Persephone)... Anything else we saw?

"Earthly rules"? I remember a dying elf saying something about the Empire working with demons.

Yeesh.

@Flairina: Nail could be a type of ghoul similar to Niles, the friend of "Midas" from Burks storyline appearing here

https://www.neorice.com/hoh_burk_888

It would be funny if team Veda/Nail is somehow connected to team Midas/Niles.

@Charter

Noah uses his lazy powers once more.

@Charter
We've known that Noah is concious for a bunch of pages. But consider his situation: It's not just that he doesn't want to. He can't. He's stuck on the catroid, and he still has that contraption on his face.

@Charter Pretty sure that was officially established back on page 2956, where Catz talks to Noah about how it's best to stay quiet during fights like that, and Noah doesn't reply, but does narrow his eyes in response. He's almost certainly awake.

what we say next to Veda is necessary "Bah-weep-Graaaaagnah wheep ni ni bong." Lmao

The chances of them killing her are flatly zero, but she clearly isn't omnipotent enough to do this job herself... Is Veda a ghoul?

re: Noah being awake: A creepy ghost child told Noah not to divulge the deal. Clearly Noah decided the best way to do that is to stop divulging anything, ever.

I'm starting to think this whole world is one big playground for beings from other universes.

Ghouls are the most obvious example. They act like they're playing an RPG full of expendable NPCs. They usually just kill you, but if you're strong enough not to die immediately (as in the case of Shalia and Evyle), they'll talk to you in an effort to get back to the killing part. But then, they talk to Tobi and Burk like equals. Not because of any show of strength, they just see them and instantly know. Somehow.

Take page 2040. The ghoul has been totally uncooperative with everybody else, but once Burk shows up it's casual conversation time. Burk politely declines helping slaughter a bunch of people, and the ghoul just says "fair." Hardly seems like a usual response. Oh, and the ghoul agrees with Burk saying he only pretends to understand what the others are talking about. Note that Burk wouldn't normally say it so directly; normally he brushes things off with ambiguous wording. (Take page 2442. Nightshade: "You might've heard stories about [...]" Burk: "For the sake of brevity, let's assume I know.")

1/2

2/2

I can't help but think of an in-person TTRPG. The GM plays all the NPCs, and you don't really have to be nice to any of them. The GM tells you the lore of the setting, and it's up to you whether you care enough to remember it. But as soon as a new player sits down at the table, you know you have to respect their character.

On the other hand, if the voice on page 501 is to be trusted, Tobi left a game world to "return to the real world." So if this is the real world, maybe all these "not bound by the same earthly rules" folks are from not-real worlds? And they're treating the real world like a game because that's what they're used to?

This is all wild speculation, and I'm not confident in most of it, but I do bet that Veda and a ghoul could have a polite conversation. Also I wonder if golems just naturally imprint on people from other worlds? So if that's what Nail is, he follows Veda for the same reason Three follows Tobi?

new odd theory: Burk is from a fighting game and he ignores magic because the fighting game has none and so has an incompatible damage type. Burk can dodge projectiles so easily because he used to fight enemies who instead of merely being perfect at reacting could read his actions, leading to him having to fight a form of limited foresight. @player_03's theory correlates this.

@A Loquacious Theorizer It did occur to me that Tobi carried over plenty of skills and abilities from her game, making her unreasonably good at tasks that match the game's genre. So yeah, if Burk is from a game, it's probably a game where you spend most of your time "defeating things" and sparring with other players. Just not ALL your time. The first thing Burk said in the comic is that he hoped he wouldn't miss lunch. So maybe he expects to be back in his world by lunchtime? And he's confident there's some kind of time dilation going on?

Some of his actions could be explained by time travel. After dodging Winn's sword, he comments on how sharp it is. And on page 898 he somehow knew Ariara was about to throw the amulet and Pablo would reach for it. Can he rewind time after getting stabbed or after a teammate gives away his hiding spot? But then why didn't he do that when he got his tooth kicked out? TBH I doubt his abilities are quite on the level of time travel. Instead, they're just something this world isn't used to, and that's the only reason he keeps winning.

Besides, we already have another explanation: Burk's shoulder demons. We saw them predict attacks in advance, and also predict that the esper contract wouldn't work. Someone compared them to Ciel's powers of detection, which could explain the one attack, but I don't think Ciel could have detected or analyzed esper powers. We know nothing of how the demons work, but they're clearly normal to Burk, just like Tobi's object analysis is normal to her.

If Veda is from a game world, I doubt her game involves combat. That might be why the Emperor trusts her not to stab him, and why she can't be killed.

You know, it occurs to me point-and-click adventures often have you using items in weird ways, which could explain why she wrote a note in lipstick. A chemistry minigame wouldn't be out of place, so maybe that's how she mixed up the antidote. Doesn't explain the sewer snake-monster form, but we never got much detail about that.

Nail finally does some talking and it only makes me want to know more. :(