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On hiatus until January! Happy new year!

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I’m starting to think that she didnt thogut this whole thing through.

Of course she didn’t, she didn’t have time to prepare for this and she would not be told anything pertinent about hellmouths. As the last page shown, she saw an opportunity to GTFO and took it. Now she’s panicking because she is through the hard parts she could foresee and believes that freedom is a simple act away.

Honestly I am kind of on Vera’s side here. Yes, if the portal opens on some random country it would be highly inconvenient. But at the same time, they are escaping *literally hell*. If they get out and have to find their way back to a familiar area, they have a flying dragon to help them. And generally speaking, that problem seems a lot less intense than whatever hell has in store for them should they be caught.

Hard agree, *Anywhere* on the mortal plane is better than inside literal hell, a stone’s throw away from the jaws of hungry hungry demons who wanna eat you for your magic

*Anywhere* on the mortal plane includes places like Everest, the Mariana Trench, or a sealed cave of giant crystals flooded with hot, heavily mineralized water.

Okay, those might be extremes. But it’s entirely possible this hellmouth has been out of commission so long because wherever it leads is no longer someplace that can be survived.

Having a sphinx on hand might help – Vera or Bloodcarver might know a spell to give them breathable air, or maybe there’s useful magic buried in the info flood Michelle got. But it might be worth it to have those ready in advance, just in case.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Vera knows nothing of the human world, and thinks it’s all very similar to this plane. Not that I really blame her.

Also are they gonna close the hellmouth behind them when they get out? So that they’re not, y’know, followed? And what does a hellmouth that hasn’t been opened in a long time look like after it’s finally been opened again? I doubt it would just turn back into a mural.

the question would be more of whether the other side is in the material world or not.
given the illustration of the plane as crossing ellipse and the distance between it and the other hellmouths, I would bet watsonly on an completely unrelated plane, possibly a dead end.

but, Doylistically, I expect it to lead to wonderland

As long as it isn’t on the bottom of the ocean or in the middle of the arctic, you’ll probably just have to take wherever, Michelle.

Middle of the Antarctic, middle of the Artic is a 2 hour plane ride back to London.

Where’s the nearest airport though.

The Danakil Desert. It’s not just a desert, it’s a volcanic desert. You get to have a 50°C temperature *and* toxic gases, and if you do find water it’s boiling and toxic.

Lake Natron. Speaking of water you shouldn’t touch, Lake Natron is so saline and corrosive that it has the amusing property of turning you to into a statue. Basically a near-instant mummification.

Yeah, there are places on the surface of the Earth that are already worse than Hell; and that’s not even counting those that have become so due to human activity.

Why the surface anyway? Yeah I know Meesh and Blood can fly but your average demon doesn’t – plus y’know, *demons* – so why NOT stick a portal to an empty space about a mile above the surface of the earth, hidden in a mural for some pillock to find and open, just for a laugh?

Yes, but consider this: what are the odds of surviving that vs the odds of them finding another way out of Dis with minimal harm? Michelle is ordained to become a battery, Vera and Bloodcurver will be cruelly punished, maybe crippled. They will certainly not be given another chance at freedom and Dis is not an easy place to get out of.

Vera is panicking. All she has to do is hide and let whoever is coming just pass through, they are not going to stop for a shade and an invisible dragon. Starting the hellmouth-opening now will draw attention to them and potentially bring the city down on them.

They might decide to collect an apparently stray shade, though – seems those can have value.

No? We see other shades in the city, on the page where we first spot the brothers there is a pair of shades wondering around the street (or following someone). In another page we see the shades staring out of a balcony. And note how the brothers didn’t take Vera’s shade. So this is a place where shades are. And if Vera can hide, maybe Michelle can too?

Either way, it is more likely that it’s just a devil taking a piss rather than someone that’s terribly interested in what’s going on here.

Okay but what if it’s in the Marianas Trench how are we gonna work that?

Given regular people can just stab a hellmouth to death(?)/closed, I’m pretty sure it has to be somewhat survivable for the hellmouth to form there.

By “regular people” do you mean Gabriel, an enigma of an angel, with their/it’s anti-demon spear? Also, I can TOTALLY see two dunk demons, looking at each other and saying “bro… what if we put a hellmouth down… and fire hose anyone who opens it” “yo…if you but it in that big treach in that world’s big sea… the water would douse them and now this portal, that if opened would wipe out TWO worlds via water, at least. And if there are any other hellmouths open to earth, suddenly you have a perpetual river, filled with all the water of earth and some of hell’s, traveling at top spead through both worlds!

Admittedly that would be terrible for the plot, but none of them know exactly how DANGEROUS this could be for everyone!

Although… if she opens a portal to the bottom of the Marianas trench I’d imagine that that would cause enough chaos for them to figure something else out.

Umm… a bit more than ‘chaos’ I imagine. See, there’s the little matter of the physics of all the water down there.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=a01QQZyl-_I

On the other hand, if this here Hellmouth would go there, the last time it has been opened wouldn’t have left a wall for it to be a mural on, nor much in terms of buildings of Dis in general, would it? ;-)

Depends how long ago it was placed, maybe? Possibly the hellmouth opens to a place that used to be safe and easily accessible, but tectonic action over the ages has now stuck it at the bottom of the ocean.

I admit that I don’t have much information on the Mariana Plate’s side of the Mariana Trench (while the parts of the Pacific Plate getting subducted there are said to be “some of the oldest oceanic crust on Earth”), but according to this diagram, the few parts of it that ever rose above the sea near the trench should have been quite volcanic, not to mention isolated to the point of uselessness to any visitors from Dis …

My bet is Wonderland or Greece. Why Greece? Dad said that the Worsets were still alive, and Worset had left for Greece. And Michele is covered with good luck charms.

But the real problem is the Hellmouth. Can you imagine the bad breath after a thousand years or so without brushing?

I really really want a set of pins of just Vera and Michelle’s faces from panel 4. They would be the pride of my collection.

From a storytelling standpoint I don’t see them not escaping eventually, but gods, Vera, was this plan B because it feels more like a plan K at least.

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