Apple Valley

Author notes

The King in Yellow

Kallisti

on Oct. 20, 2010

This is part of the events that Fletcher/The Archer was just referring to, as well as the 'rumbling' and the power going out (the source of which will be revealed when we get back to Doyle and Hubris)… I wasn't planning on going back to Art and Leaf until a few comics later, but I got called into work a day earlier than expected and I'd rather run with this than skip an update.

So, in lieu of an actual comic-y update, how about a random massive Infodump?

If you're just joining us… this is a bad point to be just joining us. But here's what's essentially going on - There are 7 Sigils, magical seals that are part of a spell that was cast untold era ago and split the Master Earth (which was significantly larger, and is sort of the Earth as we imagined it in mythology - man, monster, elf, beast, and god all living together on one awesome Earth) into seven smaller mini-Earths (the one we know now just as "The Earth" being one of them), each pushed into a seperate sub-dimension so they don't - hypothetically, anyway - interact with one another.

Art inadvertently became bound to one of the Sigils nearly a decade ago when he was trying to save the life of Steve, who Arthur had accidentally put in a coma some time before. Steve's parents, out of money and fearing their son was lost to them forever anyway, were about to pull the plug on him when Arthur began a dangerous gambit involving magic and prophecy to try and summon a golden apple, the sort from Greek and Norse legend that could heal any wound, to the real world. Instead, Arthur accidentally summoned The Apple of Discord (which is, technically, a legendary Greek golden apple).

Unfortunately for nearly everyone involved, The Apple of Discord had been used by the ancient spellcasters as essentially a 'keystone' of their spell, an indestructable magical object designed to maintain the distance and balance between the worlds. Now, with no Apple of Discord stuck between them, the "Seven Worlds of Discord" have begun imploding in on themselves, trying to return to their original configuration… and dragging everyone and everything along with them into this new gestalt world.

The biggest impact Apple Valley has felt is (so far) is that it now occupies the same space… roughly… as Avalon Vale, the "Elf World" version of Apple Valley. Apple Valley is now laced with magical portals, rips in the fabric of space and time where the two realities are overlapping and individuals can pass from one world to the next without magical aide.

According to the prophecy, the seals will eventually fail (as they have done), and seven will be drawn from the different worlds, each bearing a Sigil of the spell, to either re-cast the spell or nullify the effects. Each Sigil-Bearer has a different role to play. The King in Yellow is the first mentioned, as the one who shall break the spell, and will act as a beacon for the other Sigils. Arthur, as revealed here (and obvious throughout the comic), is the holder of the Yellow Sigil.