Comic:Dark Flying

From CGWiki

Dark Flying
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Artist:	Jessica C.
Writer:	Ashlyn T.
Characters:	Several
Updates:	Sunday
Began:	February 23, 2008
Ended:	Continuing
Art style:	CG - Full shading
Rating:	Web-14
Website	Website

Dark Flying is a fantasy webcomic written and coloured by Ashlyn Tomlinson and drawn by Jessica Cupitt. The story is set in the world of the dead and plot centers around Alistaire Johannessen along with a semi-legal transport business based on a ship.

Contents 1 Plot Summary 2 Chapter Summary 3 Characters 4 Places 5 Inhabitants

Plot Summary

Alistaire Johannesson is a normal teenage girl, going to school, going home and just generally living her life. One day Alis chases after a classmate who is out in the middle of the storm and her normal life comes to an end. In fact, her life comes to an end because she is hit by lightning. Luckily for the readers, this is where the story starts. Soon after dying Alis discovers being hit by lightning has given her the ability to control electricity.

Shortly after having a fit of anger and falling asleep, Alis is recruited by Lelaine Meyers, a violent woman with a lot of guns and the captain of the Exodus, to be her ship's mage. Alis is quickly manipulated into agreeing and so embarks on her adventures with the crew of the Exodus. First adventure? Learning how to see the world she lives in.

Chapter Summary

Prologue - Storm:

Alis gets hit by lightning while chasing 'Peter'. Hey, it's a prologue. Did you expect it to be long?

Chapter One - Thunderbolts and Lightning:

Very very frightening me!

Bohemian Rhapsody aside, Alis discovers she can shoot lightning and is dead and takes a nap. But wait! Someone was there. Watching her sleep. Or maybe she came along later. It is... Lelaine! Threatening to shoot people she wants to hire if the don't wake up now. A test of ability and back-and-forth ensues, Brent faints in Jacob's arms and Alis is hired.

Alis is offloaded on Ina who offloads her on Hang but Ina takes her back again because she is funny.

Alis monologues for a bit and the chapter ends.

Chapter Two - Thunderstruck:

The lightning puns continue.

Alis spends some time being bored, Jacob does some world building and joins Alis in her boredom.

A practice battle is revealed to be happening in the near future at some point! Lelaine is very good with details. Fancy light shows ensue. Jacob is worried.

Chapter Three - Playing With Fire:

The lightning puns end in favour of a fire pun.

The enemy appears! And almost sets Tobias (yes, bit character with a name) on fire! Cinematic fighting! Mages knocking themselves out with guts and effort!

Alis wakes up to find the trusty Brent keeping an eye on her. Apparently the Exodus has defeated the (practice) enemy. Finneas invites himself aboard to discuss the result. Lelaine and Finneas get in a fight and are hauled apart. Finneas makes a mild attempt to take Alis and flirts with Lelaine for a bit. He leaves once electrocuted. The rumour mill pumps out some rumours over poker.

Chapter Four - Dragon Dance:

Dragon fun!

The important crewmates are informed of what they did wrong. More watch in the crow's nest. But wait! What's that on the horizon? Something fuzzy? And it's foggy out! We must check it out.

Fuzzy dot is a... oh no? Shenanigans ensue as Alis tries to find out what the fuzzy thing is.

Fuzzy thing is a dragon. Alis faints. Lelaine and Ina are not comforting. Dragon fight ensues and concludes. Since there is more after this we can assume that it was won since otherwise everyone would have been eaten by a dragon. Nasty digestive juices they have.

Lelaine visits the mysterious and murderous Tilde.

Characters

Alistaire Johannesson:

Alistaire, more commonly known as Alis because it's easier to say and remember, was born in the year 2000 in Norway. She has never told Jack this so she does not know any random trivia related to her birth. Alis' life was somewhat unremarkable, she was a typical school girl with a blue uniform for most of it. She died in 2017 after being hit by lightning while running after the guy she liked with an umbrella so he wouldn't get wet, a fact that Alis is not very happy about.

Alis discovered soon after dying that lightning would shoot out of her (horribly charred, much to her dismay) hands if she got angry. Naturally, someone infuriating showed up right after that and made her shoot yet more lightning from her hands. Infuriating person, otherwise known as Lelaine, then decided to hire Alis as her new ship's mage. Why they needed a new mage in the first place was not mentioned in the excitement of having a new one. In her first few weeks on the ship Alis was made to spend time developing her mage powers. The result of this was a great deal of boredom, some singed targets and the ability to shoot a huge amount of lightning without touching it or being angry.

Having died young, Alis never grew out of being a whiny/angsty teenager, something many of the crew mock her for. Alis was previously a drama student and gets along well with Jack when they are trying to out-drama each other.

Alis wears mage robes belonging to her predecessor on occasion, other clothes more often (no one wants to walk around in dead man's clothing...) and always wears gloves. Said predecessor may have been eaten by a dragon. Alis is not sure, Ina was not to clear about it. She just said the dragon 'got' him. Predecessor is presumed dead and not needing clothes urgently. Alis found this out shortly after being informed about the dragon about to try and kill them all and fainted on the spot. Drama Queen.

Lelaine Meyers:

Lelaine is usually referred to as 'Captain' by anyone who does not want a bullet wound in the near future. She is referred to as 'Leilei' by Jack who is then walloped around the head with binoculars. Lelaine was born in 1838 in England. Lelaine has no random trivia associated with her birth because she does not have the patience to listen to Jack. Lelaine met Jack when she was about 19 years of age and quickly discovered he was a vampire by attempting to break his head open with a cast iron frying pan. She then left and wandered around with Jack for a long time until she was killed in 1889. Luckily for her she left a pretty corpse because Jack had been drinking her blood and she only looked to be in her twenties instead of her fifties. Lelaine is actually much younger than most of her crew but most of them still claim that she is very old if they are feeling brave or drunk.

Lelaine likes the ocean, or at least seems to enjoy being on it. It is uncertain if she actually knows how to swim, so she may not necessarily enjoy being in it. She is also extraordinarily lucky and good at cheating. These two things led to Lelaine winning her ship, The Exodus, in a game of poker and her becoming the captain of it (even if she is a girl).

She has a sadistic nature which she usually hides by being sarcastic but is still generally quite likeable unless she is horribly maiming people, at which point she becomes quite scary. Lelaine is insanely curious and often pokes a gun where it shouldn't be, having more foresight than Jack, and thinking that if anything bad comes at her she can just shoot it and run. Lelaine runs very fast despite her stature, or lack thereof. Her idea of logic is also a bit different to other's and she has been banned from offering incentive to the crew by Ina unless it involves giving them a raise. Lelaine instead threatens to maim people unless they do as they are told. Her crew speculate that she likes being manipulative and getting into fights. They don't speculate too loud though, as she controls all of the betting pools on The Exodus, and people would prefer she was manipulative in their direction. Lelaine has the power to manipulate pressure or something similar as far as her crew knows. They may or may not be aware that she can manifest her whatever-it-is as a magic circle with pi. They mostly just figure she shields them from cannons somehow. She carries a lot of guns at any one time but rarely uses them unless the person she is annoyed at it is too far away to clock with binoculars. When she does use the guns she is a very good shot.

Lelaine hired most of her valued members of crew on impulse (Eg. Ina, Brent and Jacob). She is the scary woman with too many guns that hired Alis after threatening to shoot her. Lelaine always wears a crucifix in the same way that Jack always wears his hat. Attempting to separate the two could have disastrous results.

Tilde:

Also known as 'that guy chained to the wall and what's with all the random weaponry in there anyway?'. He is a Spanish devil. "How can he be Spanish?" you ask, "He is far too Aryan!" Your answer would be that, yes, Tilde is a Spanish albino. Needless to say, his hair is white, his skin is pale and his eyes are (usually) blue. Why does he get a random glowy circle? And why is he standing on Pi? Questions that may never be answered... He is presumably dangerous in a supernatural way.

Tilde is presumably visited by Lelaine on a regular basis out of fear he may not be chained to the wall any more. The poor child ended up as the servant half of their servant-master relationship. Although he does not do much serving being chained up all day. Good for a chat though. If you like hundred year old troubled teens. Who believe all your problems could be solved with a little killing.

Tilde seems to have a vast number of complexes. Most of which centre around Lelaine as he is deprived of all other contact with people. They span from Master-complex to Older(?)-woman-complex to hating Ina. Er. Well, not so much the last one. Note: Masochism and bondage not included. He doesn't actually like being chained to a wall. We think it was involuntary.

Ina:

Ina is referred to by Ina by everyone except Jack. Jack refers to her as Nee-na which he gets attacked for more often than not. It is possible that Ina may have been called Shorty by some people at one point but a few knives to the hamstrings of certain people quickly remedied that. Ina was born in 1965 and died in 1984 after being shot several times. If Ina asked Jack about her date of birth or death he may start prattling about the novel, 1984.

Ina is the First Mate of The Exodus as well as the strategist, although she frequently strategises while she is fighting most of the battle instead of staying back like Lelaine wants. Ina is the shortest person in the crew and carries a lot of knives at all times. She is somewhat sadistic but usually limits her torture to Hang unless she hasn't had enough sleep. If she hasn't had enough sleep then everyone is fair game. Nobody seems to know where she's from, when she died, or even her last name. Hence it is assumed she's British (since everyone else seems to be), that she died a long time ago (since everybody else did), and that she has no last name (because it's just safer to assume that than to run the risk of getting knifed because she wants it kept a secret). In this way, Ina is possibly even more mysterious than Lelaine. The only thing that the crew agree on about Ina is that, when treated with caution and a ten-foot pole, she's a pretty good first mate. Ina does not like the undead in general because no one likes wraiths in general and because she meets all the wrong vampires. Jack does not help the cause by annoying her at every opportunity.

Ina is the second richest person on the Exodus simply because she wins everyone else's money in poker and betting pools. She is almost as lucky as Lelaine in this regard. She holds the distinction of being the only woman Hang will win money from because she will take it back anyway. Ina knows a lot of things that are useless about 99% of the time.

Hang:

Hang lived in the 18th century. He is the Navigator of The Exodus, which means that he gets to make pretty scribbles on maps all day. As long as he is prettily scribbling people don't care much what he does, even if the scribbles are very obviously not maps or even on maps. It is widely assumed that Hang's real name is rather stupid, and that he has dubbed himself Hang since he died via hanging. This rumour is further fuelled by the fact that he always wears a bandanna around his neck, and nobody has seen him without it. Ever. It may or may not be a crew sport to try to steal the bandanna.

He is overly tall and gangly, and Ina seems to hate him for it. It wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't the sensitive type. Or at least pretending to be the sensitive type. Ina likes torturing him mercilessly. He either secretly enjoys setting her off or is stupid and continually wanders into her ten-foot range. Nobody's quite sure which, though they are leaning towards 'stupid'. Hang is friends with Jacob and Brent, although he didn't like Brent at first because of Brent's amnesia and Jacob didn't like either of them because they are so prone to leaning on him. The crew continue to debate if Hang or Brent is the girlier person to this day. Hang really likes mint.

Hang is not especially fond of Getsunode because it tends to contain a large number of fan girls. He likes other ports more except for when a fan girl attack is incited by a woman who seems to travel and enjoy doing such things. This annoys Ina to no end and Hang is often saved by Ina warding off the girls who are saved in turn by Hang hauling off Ina.

Brenton Thomas Jonathon James III:

Brent is from the same general time period as Hang. He serves as Medic on The Exodus. And boy, do they need him. With Lelaine giving people concussions, Alis zapping them, everyone getting into brawls with other crews, people they meet in bars, and trees (if they're drunk enough), it's a wonder he manages to sleep at all. Of course, Brent gets very bored when no one is injured and follows Jacob around in the hope that he will get a splinter. Despite being medic, he also gets to boss most of the crew around due to a lot of general knowledge, probably gathered from serving on The Exodus for most of his death. He shares the same rank level with Jacob, and hence can only boss Jacob around if Jacob is bleeding profusely.

Despite looking incredibly girly, he is in fact incredibly badass when given a rapier. This is because he is your average ponce who is partly-in-disguise, as evidenced by his name. His really, really long name. The crew have a betting pool running on him being related to royalty. So far, nothing has happened to prove or disprove this claim. It does not help that Brent also has no idea who he is due to amnesia. Brent is incredibly dense and made friends with Hang due to sheer persistence and by completely missing the fact that Hang didn't like him. He made friends with Jacob when Jacob gave up on trying to get Brent to leave him alone and stop falling asleep on his arm just because the Captain wants to yell at them. Brent is used as an energy source for Lelaine when she needs to make a shield but has no power to spare. Brent usually has a headache for months afterwards and passes out. Upon pointing this out to Lelaine he was basically told, "Better you than me."

Jacob Smith:

Jacob is quite young having lived his life in the early twentieth century. So far, he wins award for most normal name in the crew. He serves as Gunner on The Exodus. And hey, they need him pretty badly too. It's a dangerous world out there, even if everyone is dead. Pirates, ship battles, people who Lelaine reeeeally doesn't like... Well, Jacob's gotten a lot of experience in his role as Gunner. He shares the same rank with Brent, which means that in theory there are about three or four people he can't order around. Realistically, most of the crew will ignore him unless he yells "Someone'sabouttoattackus!" in their ears. Either that or "Iknowyoucheatedatblackjack!" That tends to get people moving.

It should be mentioned that he was indeed a blackjack dealer of Las Vegas in a former life, and hence is called upon to deal most of the games that occur on The Exodus. You can tell he was once a dealer easily just by looking at him. The taste in clothes kind of stuck around. For a century. It happens. Jacob knows a lot of important things that come in handy. Together with Ina they would become the masters of general knowledge gaming if the crew had an interest in such a thing. As it is, he ends up gambling most of the time and polishing weapons, offloading Brent on Hang and finding Ina the rest of the time.

Jacob does not like having people leaning on him or being touchy feely in general. Unfortunately, he failed to communicate this to Brent, who spends his free time attached to Jacob, and succeeded in communicating it to Hang, who didn't really care.

Finneas Bengtson:

Fin for short, Finneas is the captain of Contraption and is in the same business as Lelaine. That is, legally shipping goods to mask the stuff they are probably smuggling. Finneas is continually harassed by his mage who thinks he is an idiot. The mage is probably correct. Finneas also enjoys teasing Lelaine until she shoots at him, at which point he tends to run away. Finneas is very flexible and is rarely hit by the bullets in any case. It is a wonder that he has survived. Many people attribute this to the fact that he is dead already. It is rumoured that Finneas and Lelaine were smuggling partners while they were alive as they have a relatively good relationship as far as relationships with Lelaine go. Finneas considers them friends.

Sebastian Anderson IV:

Sebastian is a fire mage on Contraption. Despite being lower on the chain of command than Finneas, he spends much of his time treating him like an inferior. However, unlike Lelaine and Ina who torture people because they enjoy it, Seb tortures Fin out of what may be a sense of duty as the more intelligent being. Apart from this, Seb seems to be somewhat quiet and bookwormish, although it is very likely that he is just bored.

One wonders why he joined a ship in the first place.

Jack Romano:

A.K.A Jack/John/Mordecai/Mordy/Romano/YOU. A man of many names, no one is ever quite sure what to introduce him as. The whole debacle surrounding his name is confusing. His real name is John. Jack is a nickname for John. However, he calls himself Mordecai, and is called Mordy by everyone who knows him. Hence, when people are introducing him, they are never quite sure what to introduce him as. He is a vampire.

Jack was born the year the first mechanical music box was invented. This is a completely random piece of trivia that really doesn't mean anything, but he likes to tell random people he meets facts about his life. He chose to become a vampire in 1827, and often cites this as the year Greece broke away from the Ottoman empire. Jack likes random trivia.

He is, so far, still alive/undead, although many people are surprised at this fact. He has developed a habit for sticking his nose into places it shouldn't be, and has, at many times, almost lost his life for his hat. The dangers his hat gets into are rather overblown and stupid, but Jack, not possessing a lot of foresight, often chases it into oncoming traffic. And then back again.

He has a rather egocentric attitude, and a sense of drama that can never be filled. His hopes for a dramatic name were crushed when, upon naming himself Mordecai, people immediately began to call him Mordy. One of the reasons he keeps his hat is because it is dramatic. I mean, come on. If a man looks at you with a hint of murder in his eyes, and takes off his hat, you know you're about to get your ass handed to you. Jack likes to go SWOOSH when he walks, and wears an undone trenchcoat at all times to facilitate this.

Jack was born in Britain, and lived there for most of his life and the period after. He migrated to Australia in the 1990s because Britain was cold and America was stupid. His trenchcoat got odd looks in the rather warm climate of Australia, but whenever people stared at him too openly, he looked at them like he was about to remove his hat. That kept them walking past rather briskly.

In 2004, he migrated back to Britain, because his trenchcoat didn't get odd looks there. When pretending to be alive he is employed as a librarian at a public library, and reads trashy vampire romances when nobody is around, because he likes to laugh at how wrong authors get the facts. His superiors often try to get him to remove his hat while he is on the job, but one offer to remove the hat was enough to ensure it remained firmly on his head.

His past has left him with a British accent he can turn on and off. He likes using it to annoy people.

Places

Chajez:

Chajez is the Ghost World's equivalent of Spain. It comes under the rule of the British in the Ghost World and therefore has very little in the way of technology. It is filled with busy markets and shops and can be difficult to be get around in for a small person who is unused to crowds. Chajez is home to the ever terrifying and abandoned House of Shardon. Another attraction of Shardon (to fangirlish women, at least) is Alexander Valentine. Known to Hang as, 'that stupid girly vampire' and to everyone else as, 'that guy who owns the biggest building around, let us dig for gold'.

House of Shardon:

Quite literally a haunted house, the House of Shardon is avoided by those who value their lives because it is infested with wraiths. The quickest way to get people to avoid you in Chajez is to get attacked by a wraith in Shardon. Of course, you may not be around for long enough to be avoided. The House of Shardon became haunted when a tragedy which killed every resident and angered the Lady occurred.

Getsunode:

Getsunode is the Ghost World's equivalent of Japan. It is not ruled by the British, despite being infested with with English speakers, and is far more technologically advanced than most places in the Ghost World. Getsunode is the only country to hold an annual mage tournament. Getsunode has a number of street attractions (often with prize money) including fights.

Minakamishima:

An island near Getsunode dotted with small villages. Almost as terrifying as the House of Shardon outside the villages, more terrifying inside them as each village has a whole host of angry spirits waiting to ensnare the unwary wandering soul. The island is surrounded by fog and the surrounding area is used by pirates to spring surprise attacks on... innocent... not pirates.

New Holland:

Think 'Australia!' only dead.

Inhabitants

Mages:

Living people that die in unusual ways gain powers related to the cause. Alis is an example of a mage; despite the odds, she was hit by lightning and gained electrical powers. Mages are required by law to wear their mage colour. This law may have been established to provide thugs and generally annoying people with some warning before they harass a mage. Shortly afterwards it was discovered that most of the populace also wore colours and were still mostly indistinguishable from mages.

Mage power can be gained from almost anything as long as it happened in an unlikely way. If a person died in a vat of rubber because they were chasing a butterfly and tripped on a raccoon stealing a screwdriver then they may become very stretchy in the afterlife.

Vampires:

Bloodsucking undead people. Vampirism is a blood borne disease, although vampires are only created after a large amount of blood has mixed. One property of vampire blood is that it causes a body to regenerate extremely quickly when injured. If a vampire frequently bites a living person their aging slows due to the transfer of a small amount of the chemical keeping vampires looking young and pretty.

Vampires become extremely weak after going for a few months without blood and start to lose the colour from their vision and eventually start to sweat blood. Vampires are not weakened by the sun (unless they are Jack) and do not generally burst into flame when they step outside unless they have made a fire mage extremely angry recently. Crucifixes will not necessarily ward off a vampire, although it is considered to be in poor taste to wear one when with a vampire due to the stigma attached.

Werewolves:

Fairly standard deal with the werewolves. Not so fond of silver, change into wolves every so often. Living people become werewolves when a werewolf kills them by tearing them apart. We're talking little pieces. Limb from limb. Not to say that werewolves generally go around ripping people up but there's always one. Werewolves are indifferent to wraiths and vampires alike, they don't have any particular enemies amongst the undead crowd as a species.

Wraiths:

Classified as 'undead', wraiths are essentially vengeful spirits. They are generally the souls of people who were murdered and become revenge obsessed, spending their death trying to kill the one who wronged them as well as anyone getting in the way. Wraiths can only move a certain distance from their place of death. They are capable of summoning power the same way as a mage as well as summoning a weapon. They bear a great deal of animosity towards vampires.

The populace generally ignores or accepts wraith related killings because the person killed probably deserved it anyway if they were being chased by a wraith. Wraiths have a low level of self control and a high level of power. A 'medisen' is a weaker form of a wraith with high self control but low power. Medisens are usually people connected to a murder who bear a strong grudge.