Hint
Kai saving Near from certain death, in a way.
As always, if you like the comic, please consider donating on my patreon. Even one dollar goes a long way.
Don’t forget that I stream every Sunday! You are more than welcome to join in on the fun.
The stream is held at the following hour:
UTC: 1PM
EDT: 9AM
PDT: 6AM
CEST: 3PM
Don’t forget to vote for Twin Dragons at Topwebcomics!
http://topwebcomics.com/vote/21879
Thanks for voting!
It’s not too far for Near
but it’s too much for that dress.
She’d get closer to her goal
but would end up in a mess.
Kai wouldn’t look up.. would he –
when she’s climbing up the tree;
using claws as cats like to do
before they think it through.
She could probably jump
down from all that height
and hope Kai can catch her…
best he save her from that plight.
Diolch yn fawr iawn. Sorry that I’m late; this week has been rather off. Doing better now.
Aye, cats do climb trees. Though given her father’s type, he might forbid her. If not for the dress, bet she’d try it anyway. But as matters stand… hark, what is that sound? Doth music now play for Kai? “Jump” by Van Halen?
Despite Kaya not appearing in this week’s page, aa soon as Near read out “Look up,” I half expected her to be in the tree. Cheshire grin optional.
Kai makes two, er, three…good points with the “In your pretty dress” line.
1. If dress is damaged, bad things can happen.
2. If he’s on the ground and she’s above him in a dress…(Not going to finish that sentence because it’s obvious to anyone who knows, and not something I want to tell people who don’t.)
3. It’s a nice compliment about her dress again.
I thought something like this would be an issue. She would have been better served with shorts and a flannel shirt. Preferably a button down one so she could tie it in the front. The outdoorsy look is very cute when done right.
Just ask Daisy Duke! 🙂
It would have been a Near death experience.
I can think of two “normal person” solutions, that whoever placed this geostash might have used to justify it as a valid placement:
1. Somebody could climb the tree to get to it.
2. There are presumably some fallen branches in the area, which could be used to knock it down.
In this webcomic, however, I have a feeling they’ll come up with a different way to get it.
Hmmmm, I’m thinking there may be some hidden way of either lowering the whole thing or just part of it. Something down around ground level where a normal Human could access it, but concealed away somehow. A hollow tree perhaps? Definitely too high for most people to climb or most ladders to reach, so I’m definitely thinking there’s something within the range of standard Human height levels….
Near could reach it? I guess being part Forest cat helps with your climbing ability.
Dresses and climbing up do not mix. Once again, I have to say that the cute couple’s clothes are not the best suited for this kind of activity. Maybe Near could stand on Kai’s shoulders? Kai actually called her dress pretty, how long before Near recognizes the compliment?
Cats climbing trees, of course! Good thing Kai is good at jumping if he needs to go up and help.
Heh that’s wgat I get for reading on my phone the first time, missed part of what was said in the last panel, even after enlarging to read better. So yeah even though Near could she’s not climbing in that dress which is for the best. So it looks like either Kai tries to climb or they try some other way to get the cache.
So, now the question is, how are they going to get the cache without wardrobe malfunction or embarrassment?
It’s simple: She hands Kai her dress and climbs up, wearing her bra and panties, which cover just about as much as a typical bikini.
One: When searching in a forest, you need to think in tree dimensions.
Two: Yes, let’s avoid a Near death experience.
Tree: Near just said they wouldn’t put the stash somewhere you normally can’t get to. If lifting logs with dragon hybrid strength isn’t normal, should climbing trees with cat hybrid claws count as normal then? Or is it normal for geostashers to carry arborist equipment? Perhaps Near should have said “somewhere I can’t get to”? 😉
Real trees usually aren’t the barren wooden pillars that they’re often depicted as when drawn. I give 50:50 odds Robin retroactively adds a bunch of realistic protruding branches next week vs. Kai shoulder-tackles the tree and causes the stash to fall.
Not their not, unless it’s a type of tree that rarely grows branches on the main trunk. Maples do that, but if you look at an older oak or redwood, after they reach a certain size all the branches on the lower trunk have died off and fallen.
This! Though I do kinda want the see Kai shoulder tackle the tree too.
*Looks at the tree in the lower middle-left panel*
Yeah, I don’t see Kai shoulder-charging the tree, and if he does, it won’t be the tree taking damage…
I’m still leaning towards something at a height that normal Humans can reach, but concealed somehow. It’s far too high for most people to climb, climbing animal Hybrids would be able to get up there but is the puzzle box designed to be opened while that high?
The shape of a tree depends on both species and surroundings. Pines in a forest are very much like straight wooden pillars. (Especially when the forest is essentially a pine plantation with trees selected to yield long straight planks.) The branches are in the canopy where the sunshine is. A lone pine in a field, on the other hand, grows a wide and low crown.
More than one kind of pine. Some are medium height, branches everywhere, dieing toward bottom. Some are tall and straight, once big you see no sign of lower branches
This. The pines I’m used to have branches all the way down, even when in relatively crowded conditions. That said, the pines I’m used to were on my grandfather’s Christmas tree farm and at another location were a noise barrier to dampen highway noise for a house that was built right off the highway.
However, I’ve certainly seen other pines. It’s just that pines I’ve seen most frequently didn’t have identifying branches anywhere I’d see them without looking up, so they didn’t really register as pines. Basically all the other trees were also these long wooden pillars with no visible branches or leaves without looking up. Sure, the bark is distinctive, if one is an arborist. I’m not, so I’d have to guess.
I will point out that even with trees whose branches go all the way to the bottom, the surroundings still matter. The larger trees on my grandfather’s tree farm and basically all the trees in the sound barrier around that one house had their lower branches growing into the same space as the neighboring tree. That *usually* let one push the branches aside to pass through, but not always. I think it was only once that I saw branches from one tree actually grow together with a branch from the neighboring tree, but having tangled branches in that situation was merely uncommon.
Kai is a better choice to climb anyway, he can handle a fall much better than she can, plus with his claws and “super” strength, he could climb that tree like us mere humans would climb a ladder. if nothing else, he could tear it off the tree and toss it to her to open.
What claws? Kai don’t have claws…
Kai has claws on his feet, that’s why Kai and Kaya go around the house barefoot. Still, not sure climbing is Kai’s “thing”.
Checking the “Movie night outcome” I don’t see any claws.
And my brother is walking around the house barefoot and last I saw him he was not a dragon. (He claims to be a hobbit though despite not being very hairy there.)
Somewhere on this website is a character guide. I looked for it, but I can’t find it again.
In it I believe it said that Kai and Kaya don’t like wearing shoes because of their claws and that is why at home they are generally barefoot.
Um, Near can probably climb the tree like it’s a ladder also, but would need to be super careful about the dress. Dresses *could* be made durable enough to stand up to a climb done by a normal human and still look roughly like that dress looks in this update.
However, that dress clearly is not one of those, as established in the update where it was blowing in the wind as she approached. Durable dresses are heavy. I get the feeling that Near may be sturdy enough to not really notice the weight of such a dress, but it would not blow in regular breezes. I recall walking with a friend who had a durable dress as a thunderstorm approached, and somebody commented on the fact that her dress was not billowing even in that heavy wind. I think the PC version of the comment was, “What is that dress made out of? Lead?”
If I recall correctly, the answer was, “It’s several layers of wool-kevlar blend. That may seem ridiculous, but I do SCA. This is what I wear when supervising sword fights.”
I can’t remember the last time I saw writing this pristine in the comic.
They shouldn’t have to tear the birdhouse off the tree. You’re not supposed to damage the stash. It’s probably a capsule inside the birdhouse.
Iws it then a bat-box instead of a bird-box…? They tend to have a slit opening near the top instead of a big hole in the front…
“bat-boxes” don’t look like that and they for sure would not have that stick in the front. Birdhouses should not have it either (but sometimes do), as the birds don’t need it, and it only make it easier for predators to get to the eggs/hatchlings.
I thought a bat box should have a slit in the underside.
What claws? Kai don’t have claws…
Ignore this, it was ment to be a reply to Scarsdale.
Ah, so it IS a puzzle box geocache. And the first piece of the puzzle is finding it, second is getting too it…
I’m still saying there is probably something within normal Human working height range personally. Box up above, look around the tree and work out how to lower it or at least part of it. Maybe there’s something reaching from the box to another tree, leading to the means to access the geocache…?
Random thought, could be a case of it having a way to access it at ground level for normal Humans & Hybrids who don’t have climbing animal traits, but what if there is a secret clue inside the accessible puzzle box, which leads to a climbing animal Hybrid to actually climb up there and find a 2nd geocache? One specifically for them? Put a solar powered trail camera or even 1 of those 2 way communication cameras in there, get them to say their name, where they are from and whether they mind having the video posted online, if it’s a 2 way set-up maybe carefully have a conversation with them….
Not trying to force any ideas on anyone here, just thinking my home security system has solar powered cameras with 2 way communication and apparently really long range (thank you big sales + Sister’s employee discount! 😋), if I was to set up a geocache it wouldn’t be too hard to monitor it by recording or actually talking to whoever finds it….
Panel 2 LOL Dress looks like a simplified, summer, outdoor wedding dress. 😉 Oh! uhh.. Hello, Kai! 🙂
I still wonder if it is a regular stash or a multi-stash.
If he could climb or jump to it he probably would have indicated that he could by now. Damaging the tree or things in general should be discouraged if this is a public park and probably against the rules/guidelines of the game. It looks like they need some kitty claw climbing prowess for this challenge or return with a ladder (but where’s the fun in that and it would take so much longer).
How much does she like him and trust him? Lets test it.
Have him turn his back, take the dress off, retrieve the stash and put the dress back on.
Now they can examine the stash together assuming everything went according to plan, which of course it will.
Or plan B – Switch clothes behind their own bushes. She could climb wearing his shirt and pants, assuming they fit. Her hips do appear a little wider than his.
Or a variation: “Turn around and give me your shirt.”
There’s a fallen log nearby that could be used as a ladder. Maybe not the intended solution, but it’s within Kai’s abilities.
Or perhaps they don’t have to climb the tree but have to look in the direction the perch is pointing.
The native pine around here is the European red pine, Pinus sylvestris. The native spruce is the Norway spruce, Picea abies. Those are the ones I’ll talk about here.
Young pines and spruces have the same general shape. Every spring they add a new ring of branches in the top, and the existing branches grow longer radially, forming the conical Christmas tree shape. Thus a young pine could plausibly serve as an indoors Christmas tree, but traditionally it shall be a spruce. (Imported firs have also become popular.)
Spruces just continue growing the same way, growing tall and straight while keeping full rings of branches all the way down to the ground as long as they get enough light. It’s common to erect larger spruces as outdoors Christmas trees in central places in cities and towns. The lower branches die only in very dense clumps of spruces where the higher branches absorb nearly all the light. In such places it gets so dark that almost nothing grows on the ground.
Pines on the other hand start shedding their lower branches when they’ve grown a few meters tall, and the remaining branches grow crooked rather than radial. A pine would not be wanted for a large outdoors Christmas tree because it’s not the right shape. Even a lone pine, that grows wide rather than tall, doesn’t keep all of its branches. It keeps a few large branches here and there, and sheds the rest.
Spruces can be used to plant a very dense hedge, practically impenetrable and impossible to see through. Pines would seem unsuitable for a hedge.
It doesn’t take an arborist to recognize pine bark. No other common tree around here has bark that can be mistaken for the thick, rough bark on an old pine trunk. Children carve chunks of pine bark into toy boats. Other trees’ bark isn’t thick enough for that. (Wikipedia tells me that not all pine species have this kind of bark.)
Anyway, pine was just one example. Many broad-leaf trees also shed most or all of their low branches when surrounded by other trees. There’s nothing unrealistic about the tree in the comic. That was my point.
Somehow that post didn’t end up as a reply in the right place. Whatever.
I’m going to assume that was supposed to be in reply to my comment, or at least one of the comments in the chain I started. But never apologize for spreading useful knowledge. If I ever acquire property and decide to grow a tree border, I’ll definitely remember this.
Maybe next week? Maybe not?
Panel 1 Close up on Near. Near looks very serious and says “Can I trust you?”
Panel 2: close up of Kai’s face, smiling, “Of course you can—”
Panel 3: Kai is hit in the face with the dress while Near says off panel “Great, hold this.“
Panel 4: Long shot of Kai, Near and the tree (with the birdhouse visible at top) Near zips up the tree in her underwear up to the bird house, speed lines showing her progress.
Panel 5: We are looking down the tree trunk with the birdhouse in the foreground. Near is below the birdhouse, looking up at it. She is hanging from the tree by her left hand and both feet, opening the top of the birdhouse with the right hand.
Panel 6: Kai, with a blushing, stunned look on his face, wordlessly hands back the dress to Near and takes the capsule. Near says “Thanks!”
Panel 7: Annabella, peeking from behind a tree, a shocked look on her face, is biting the back of her left hand, her eyes as large as dinner plates.
Or Near slips in Panel 6 and Kai catches her.
Leaving Kai holding a almost-naked Near in his arms. Poor kid is gonna explode.
How will he keep the dress safe while catching the girl?