–> – PREQUEL

Unclever title

Kat? Katniss? Katniss Everdeen? Hey are you listenin-OHGOD. WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?

WHOOPSWRONGSTORYSORRYGOTTAGOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bobatron

WAIT! It just wants to love you man!!!!
Bladix

win.

sabata2

Fire.

Fire!

FIRE!!!

WAKE UP!!!

unclecho

Awesome. too bad we won’t be able to get down to the bottom of why katia has these dreams. Oh well, maybe next time.

Derp

This is highly interesting. I REALLY REALLY want to see what happens next.

Wisbi

Agreed.
- Ankoku
  
  Here Here
  - my name
    
    Hear, hear!
    - Insane-Randomness
      
      HUZZAH!
    - goldcat99
      
      YES OK WOOO HORAY
    - Curtisimo
      
      C-C-C COMBO BREAKER
      I approve.
    - andy610
      
      Aye!
    - The riddler
      
      Hear, hear… Hear?
    - Jirky-Kake
      
      Yes, I can hear, damn it!!!
    - zerofade
      
      WARFACE!
    - Umbreon
      
      Go forth, Katia, dear! Be brave, and face tomarrow! Obviously, from those words above you, someone cares, and will help you.
    - Zerithos
      
      Aaaaah wtf has happened in my absence? Why is noone being annoying on this stream of comments? I love this.
      Go go Katia! I mean run the hell away kind of go!

TechSmurf

This has become something much grander than an MSPA-style adventure.

kotekzot

it’s also become greater than most screens.
- Bahb
  
  I’m pretty sure the scrolling is intentional.
  I think the light and Katia looking upwards is supposed to draw us upwards. Kazerad could confirm this of course.
  
  Though honestly, great work in pushing the boundary of the medium here. I don’t think scrolling and boundaries have been utilized so well over the last pages (even if this one wasn’t intentional).

Lowblock

Does he just go “kat hey kat” and then it stops?

Kazerad

Yeah. This one isn’t very long at all.
- Calvin
  
  I like it. IMO, the less stuff you have to go through to reach where you were if you somehow end up back at the beginning, the better. Lucky for me, you seem to have that down pat. Almost like playing an actual Oblivion mod with episodic releases! Keep up the exemplary work, Kazerad!
- cake
  
  not that it isn’t as megawsome as ever, but it’d be nice to know a page is over when it is. I missed content twice thinking it was over and now I kept looking for content after I’d already seen it all.
  
  fuck you firefox megawsome is totally a word
  - Name!
    
    It’s megaawesome.
- goldcat99
  
  um pardon me but is katia ever going to get something that lets her become a mage?
  - xKiv
    
    Like some confidence? Probably. Not sure if she will hold on it though.
    - Some guy
      
      katia had confidence. she just lost it
      again
      and again.
    - Zerithos
      
      She’s already a mage. And I killed waaaay too many mages in my playthrough. 100% resist magic FTW.
  - Goldcat99
    
    I ment like a magicka restoreing thing
    - ArcaneMonkey
      
      In this case, i don’t think there’s any way she can get magicka regeneration(unless soultrapped things still naturally produce magicka?) and her best bet is to get a ton of potions of magicka or something else she can drain magicka from
      
      or just get lots of people casting spells at her
      
      Yeah, i tried the whole Atronach mage thing, doesn’t work out that well
Jirky-Kake

Going on a limb here and saying she’s finally waking up from her nightmare… Damn, seeing what else or finding out what happens next that’ll scare the living shit out of more fans is always fun, but I guess getting woken up by someone seeing her “technically naked” is a thrill, also :3.
- Dragon
  
  Mm. Tv Tropes calls this “Crashing dreams”.
  Looks like she is about to wake up, but I wouldn’t mind some more nightmare fuel myself.
Jet

lol that statement looked really off to me for like two minutes then I remembered she’s dreaming and when someone is trying to wake you up you hear their voice in the dream coming from another figure xD

FreeGlass

Oh boy.
Digging this, mate. Really am.

Ransom

Clicking on the bookmarked webpage, and then seeing the new format freaked me out!

Who’s calling to her? I must know! Great job Kaz.

Relem

The person calling her is in the church right? Martin, was that his name?
- Urist McNoble
  
  Oh GOD.
  That wont end well.
  - Stankloid
    
    What? Martin’s awesome! Although it will be funny if she gets woken up from a nightmare about the emporer by the emporer’s son.
- ArcaneMonkey
  
  that would explain both the presence of the fire and of the king, but I don’t believe he learned her name. and even if he did, he wouldn’t call her “Kat.” so our choices are mostly people she’s relatively familiar with.it could be Quil-weave(unlikely), Asotil(I doubt he’s call her anything but “citizen”), Sigrid(please no), and Nah(?)(just calling her “cat” due to being racist)
  - Chichimi
    
    My bets on the the girl who tried to poison the well, personally.

Pecon

Oh no the website disappeared!

Shadow

Katia: wake up

Jirky-Kake

Not the place but ok 😛

stupidjellyfish

Cat*

Miauw

Damn, this one is awesome! Love the new theme. Will it stay in the real world.
(as far as a world can be real or fake in the TES universe)

Dovahkiin

someone is attempting to wake you.

Zerithos

IS IT FREAKING ERANDUR?

Steve Potluck

It is always nice to find that instead of another Dilbert daily comic strip, the RSS feed tell me prequel updated instead.

Curtisimo

I’m guessing someone is trying to shake her awake in the waking world. So, SUCK IT, NIGHTMARE! Didn’t count on OTHER PEOPLE, now did we?

Krystalkitty

This is such a cliffhanger. I need to know what happens to her!

KeyFox

Anyone else in love with the fact that the entire page is now a theater?

Goldcat99

YES

tech

HEY! LISTEN! HEY! HEY! LISTEN!

Nex

WATCH OUT!
- Wolligepoes
  
  LOOK

gyromorgian

It’s not real.

TB Tabby

This is getting ridiculous. Now I’m getting a taste of the ole Dee-Aye-Ay-Ay.

Sokanas

If you close your eyes really tight and cover your ears the bad monster will disappear

Cthulhlu

That never, EVER works.
apart form the times that it dose.
- Jirky-Kake
  
  Doing this made my eyes pop a blood vesel and then screaming in the agonizing pain, i accidentally made myself go deaf by applying to much force covering my ears. Finally able to open my eyes and blur out of all the hazyness, the monster was still on my computer screen. No, this did NOT work.

Zer0DusT

it’s gonna be martin, though she’s gonna freak, he’s the olny one whos dabbled in daedric before, even if it isn’t, i get the strong feeling she’ll reveal her nightmares to them, they’ll talk about vaerminia, she’ll find arkved, steal the orb and maybe get cured; though we know making a cat cry is the point, she’ll proably get cursed more, trapped in the tower “for eternity” and then escape due to her strong will power

that being said the opposite can be true, and he may genuinely help, my proof of this?

from the wiki:”The wizard Arkved has the Orb of Vaermina… snatched from the dreams of my followers and dragged into the waking world.”

how the hell didn’t that happen before hand?

Zerithos

Because the real villain here is Sheogorath.

Mimi

Hey Kaaaatia, are you awake? Hey. HEY! Stupid cat, WAKE UP!

someone

Hey, Katia, do this:

1. get ImageZoom
2. Right-click and wheel up on the monster.
3. Keep wheeling up until it disappears!

That Guy

You know if you do that in real life, but zoom out, you can see cthulu and his unspeakable minions encircling YOUR world?
- Zerithos
  
  And if you zoom out in the picture eventually you’ll see the daedra lords laughing their heads off.
  - Zerithos
    
    Shit! *princes!

That Guy

Now who in Kvatch knows her by name?

That Other Guy

Notice that they’re not calling her by her full name, just ‘Kat’.
They could easily just be calling her, well, cat.
unclecho

Well, She did talk to almost everyone in Kvatch 😛 Although the person is calling her by Kat.
- ChasingWagons
  
  And when he talks, he spells her name right. Wait…

Shinden

Aaaaw yeeeeah another update, post-haste! Also it took over the whole goddamn page again! Love it!

Squato

Well DAMN this comic has REALLY made something for itself! Thank you everyone for making this one of the most interesting comics out there. 😀

Cyph

Don’t you just want to pick her up and carry her away from all this? She looks so damned adorable.

Jadon

You know, it just dawned on me.

The entire area was filled with wood.

Katia’s mind, in the depths of her own terror, is FILLED with dry tinder. Think about that, Katia, the girl with a problem centered around settings things accidentally on fire, who’s learning to channel that flame, is confronted by her worst, innermost fears…

… and it’s standing in a pile of kindling.

Aquilux

I love how you’ve broken the story out of the frame and spilled it all over the page, but this time it was a bit frustrating to scroll down and try to see what’s happening to Katia only to find out that I missed something above.

Ch’marr

You dont miss anything… it doesn’t “activate” until you look (scroll) up.

rua’iri

What happened to the humor ? i miss it while these are really impressively made, it was the characters and humor that made me keep comming back, its been nothing but these dreams for months now. I’ve been following it since i think the 2nd or 3rd one way back when…. and tbh i kinda miss Katia 🙁

Ch’marr

But… how can there be comedy without tragedy?

Love without hate?

Sweet without sour?

Python without Perl?

Chocolate without carob?
- Fily84
  
  You sure about the Python part? I don’t even know Perl… 🙂
- xKiv
  
  Computer without COBOL and Fortran?
  
  Cake without mustard and ketchup?
  - Zerithos
    
    You forgot mayonnaise on the cake!
- panoz
  
  no its how can you have python without a flying circus
Ankoku

PC without crap… i mean mac

Sammitch

Needs something at the end to indicate that it is the end. This and the last one I’ve stared at extra long waiting for something else to maybe happen.

Fily84

I Agree

Casey

I like how everyone is giving Katia encouragement, but there’s one thing some seem to have overlooked. Katia is currently a grown up young lady outside of this, which means at least she will survive even if it impaled her again before she wakes up. But that isn’t my point. If this is a dream she may yet be able to change things enough to overcome her fears. If it’s a flashback, she won’t be able to change a thing since it already happened, in which case we may be seeing the (later) events that really drove home her fear of royalty that plagued her for her whole life. I say “later events” because she was bothered by the shadow of her toys earlier on. You know how most little kids tend to hide behind mommys leg around new people. I feel like I’m missing something else I wanted to explain… A little help? Ch’marr? I’ll think of it later.

Ch’marr

Hey… I have as much control and understanding of this as you do! 🙂
- Casey
  
  I new it! I knew I should have asked Kazerad. Of course I don’t expect spoiler details. That’s what the story is for. Anyhow, it still hasn’t come to me. My train of thought is still boarding at the station…

Olla

Aww hes a nice giant monster thing he just wants to play. Give him a huggle.

Cthulhlu

Its not a crown, its fragments of its skull… Manimarco? that you?

unclecho

Interesting, never thought of that. Would make sense.

NeoDarklight

I’m still looking forward to more!

Ugh

Well from the last couple of updates I got some ideas of whats going on, I think that Katia is royalty. The royal figure always comes from her own shadow as far as I remember. She might have overheard when she was young that she was born of royal blood, the idea must of scared her so much that she forced herself to forget, the nightmares are a subconscious reminder to her of what she is. She said before that she used to live in a castle before, that her father was a steward for one of the nobles, but they had to move out because of her nightmares and fear of royalty. As far as I know she never made mention of who her mother was, does she even know? This is important because in elder scrolls lore, a baby’s race is determined by the mother. We can tell that her mother was khajiit, but she doesn’t say what her dad is, I wonder if the dad she had, the steward, was even her real father? Maybe that was the real reason the father bought a farm and moved out of the castle, katia blamed it on herself and her nightmares, but really her father found out his wife was having an affair?

Also I wonder who is calling out to her, I think it is someone that closer and more familiar with her because they are calling her kat. I think it might be Dmitri, but he died you say! yeah a freshly dead body in a den of necromancers wont go unraised for long! pluss we saw the cat in town with the welkynd Stone and note attached to it, i’m assuming that was his doing.

Timbles

daaaaamn. that’s a good theory.
- Zerithos
  
  Scruffmeister?

DPro1

Don´t be afraid, stand up and ask who is it and listen what he or she has to say

ChasingWagons

Yeah, I would DEFINITELY be more worried about spontaneously generating golden floating words hovering over my head rather than the rapidly spreading fire or the giant scary-as-fucking-shit monster behind me OH NO THAT’S JUST FINE.
Tempt her with cake, Martin.

DPro1

oops i forgot that part hahaha but anyway its just a dream anything could happen, but thanks for your sarcastic comment

heidtmare

My monitory is 1440×900 and im getting irritated about having to constantly scroll up and down to get the full effect!!!

InvaderNiveon

My monitor is 1920×1080 and I even have to scroll up and down to get the full effect.
- Zerithos
  
  Hehehehe. My monitor is fricking tiny, but I can zoom out and see the whole thing!

Narnik

Well.

Everyone go home now.

Kazerad wins the jump scares

Zerithos

Naaaah. The teletubbies win the jump scare contest EVERY TIME.

Ohhithere

Wake up.

Nex

HAIL Ch’maar the greatest Codeomancer!

Ch’marr

Meow meow meow!

Don’t call it canon! :3
- panoz
  
  have you played around with 3d transforms yet?

Carbisari

You’re not alone!

It might be a good time to wake.

Ankoku

just saw the kings eyes,
that’s a nice touch, Keep up the great work Kazerad
we are most impressed

Will

Asotil needs to be carrying her out of a burning chapel with handsome face, then they need to kiss and they hook up. Because Asotil is me, and that’s what I would do.

Sam

“Dreams are today’s answers to tomorrow’s questions.”
Edgar Cayce

DustyMuffinsss

Great. Now it looks like Mundus and I want to kill it more :I

ArcticWolf131

Best wake for your savior, perhaps they’ll be able to help if you tell them what happened at the guild?

Zenuel

Rather unrelated, but I wanted to leave this somewhere it would have a chance to be seen by you!

I’ve been working on a lot of projects as of late, and thanks to Prequel I’ve been incredibly inspired, as a thanks I wanted to give you some fan-music I made: http://soundcloud.com/zenuel/making-a-cat-cry 😀

I’m also happy to make more if you need any for anything, thank you for the amazing journey thus far~

Kazerad

I see things pretty much wherever they are hidden! And wow, this is pretty nice; I like how seamlessly you managed to mix the gamey retro instruments and the more realistic ones. Great work =D

I’ve already got a couple musicians in tow for when I need help, but hopefully you wouldn’t mind if I stuck this in the music section of my fanart page?

Sam

Time to wake up Katia

Link

Realization: The king is a chucklevoodoo

Timbles

What’s a chucklevoodoo?
- Zerithos
  
  Nonono! You’ve got it all wrong! It’s a wumpus!

wolf

I guess Katia Managan’s name was originally Kat Hey Kat, then. …Hmm.

Steven Miles

Katia: Royals are just figureheads! Have no fear!

waffles

use the insults of cat jokes in your dream, go supernova and light the darkness with FIRE, and then wake up. :3

Aulakauss

These last three have been simply amazing. The interactive staircase, the evolving King (and the explosion at the end, wasn’t expecting that), and then Katia’s little subtle hint to scroll up from the way her eye is pointed.

This is absolute genius. Loving the hell out of it.

Eatsfalconpunch

And so Solaire of Astora floated down from the heavens, praising the sun on the way down, and saved Katia from the evil king

Sam

bravo sir, bravo

Willhelm

Woah man! This is intense! Like the crickets outside my apartment have stopped chirping, no police sirens, no babys crying, no public violence, nothing! Just silence as everything waits for the next update! INTENSE

psicolo

The format is awesome but I’m getting tired of not knowing if I’ve reached the end of the content for the day. Spending an extra minute just scrolling up and down wondering if your javascript is broken or if it’s done is kind of annoying.

I’m starting to miss the normal comics vs. super long delay for minimal story development for the sake of a cool page.

There is still a story right?

hhhnnnnnggggggg

Well, crap.

hhhnnnnnggggggg

Katia should train herself to lucid dream, its the only way. You can’t read in your dreams. Reading constantly throughout the day as a “Dream check”. If you train yourself, you’ll do so in dreams as well and when it triggers that you realize your dreaming it usually just wakes you up or lets you take control! There’s other ways I don’t remember.

Then..

TURN INTO A DRAGON

Zerithos

I read in my dreams.

Zorpike

I wonder if it’s the nightmare king that’s talking to her. Maybe all this time, he’s just been playing around, and thought Katia was his friend…

Kaze’aze

Yeah… no.

AthiosDvK

A soft, strange glow from above? It doesn’t seem dangerous at all compared to what you’re currently faced with, my dear Khajiit. Anything is better than here.

tronn

A ray of hope? What the freaking bullshit is this!?

Solkov01

Oh dear god, what the hell has this become?

Alright. I say we have to fight it for her. Kill it with our words.

Merne23

yaaay! waking up!
spreading dreamfires = OH NOES

ThatGuy

1. Find Vaermina
2. KICK HER ASS!!

Duck,duck,Katia

Thoughts when I saw glowing light:For you are katia managan!DRAGONBORN!*Fus roh dah nightmare king into space*…Best.Thought.Ever.

Sloppy Turd

Man, I just want to rush in and save her!

Tycholarfero

God, being tired, reading and listening to a shit ton of creepy shit, and then, going on here this late probably isn’t good for my mentality. I jumped and nearly had a heart attack when I saw the current form of the emperor, Jesus Christ. Do go on and make more great things, good sir. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.

Razerkrow

Awaken, awaken! Mustakrak…Wait, that was not it.. Anyway, the demon/ghost/nightmare-thingy looks like a friendly guy to me.

Gasz

Why don’t you try to talk or communicate with… it? Maybe it knows something about you, something terrible and wants to warn you… with, uh, nightmares?

….Or it is just an enemy that tries to kill you in your dreams…

Commander_AM

i guess the divines are answering your prayers.

A French Guy

Another good (and a bit creepy) chapter ! I really love this “dream realm” drawing style. You guys are doing an amazing work, keep it that way !

Lady

Awww, I expected to actually get my guts spooked off. Oh well,
what happens next I wonder

Uncannyscarecrow

The King is trying to reach you, and wake you from this dream. Stop your sniveling, stand up and face him once more remember fear is only in the mind and everything is afraid of something. He is wanting to get rid of the dreamer which he fears.

booty lover

i miss Booty Phantasm’s comments 🙁

SuperGnome

Kick him in the jewels! (He’s wearing a crown with jewels, right?) Kick him! Kick him in his spiky face! One-eight-hudred foot delivery! Care of your foot, to his face!

Or maybe you need to get mad?

Come on tuna breath! Paw him in the face! Or would that fluff ball of a foot even make a dent!?
You gotta be kitten me, the worst you could do is snuggle him to death!
Pretend he’s a ball of yarn! Tasty tasty yarn!

OOC:: I think I’m gonna have to call her Tuna breath from now on. XD

aceDiamond

You know what, I’m not entirely sure, but I think that might be some sort of lich.

Dagoth Purr

@katia

carefully assess the situation.

The big monster has no stomach, and because of this, even if he eats you youd just fall out of his ribcage.

Sure, you might get chewed up, but cuts and broken bones heal.

Michael

Dear god, imagine my surprise when I check for a new update and the top of the page is all ominous pillars and tentacles.

Also, marry me, Kaz.

Azyri

I finally caught up.
Damn it. I hate catching up.

Miauw

You’re playing TF2 again, arent ya?
Well, i can understand that, MvM is just so addicting.

Ch’marr

We’re all working very hard! Honest! 🙂

Red709

>looks at update hm hm h… OH WHAT THE BLOODY HELL

good work prequel this is the third time in a row an update has startled the shit out of me

Denis

Apple, hey Apple!

BlueCat

Perhaps all these nightmares are the result of Vaermina’s machinations over poor Katia’s mind. . . and the one calling her in the middle of this horrible nightmare must Akatosh, since this is his shrine and all; which would make sense with the golden flaming letters. . . and he is trying to wake her up, after she trashed his shrine :(. . . not a happy god I guess. . . GOOD LUCK KAT, It can’t get any worse then this :)!

tech

Katia: Heed Vaermina

Elosan

It…spoke…0_o Oh boy…

Mzuark

Okay, it seems less that she’s afraid of monarchs and more that she’s afraid of Hermaeus Mora.

Aulakauss

Okay, so apparently there were a lot of shits in this King-Dream / Ch’marr hacking reality sequence that I didn’t know were there.

HOW THE HELLS DO YOU DO THAT? Can I.. Can I worship you, Ch’marr?