Either that or the narrator is the Fate Spider.

I'm guessing its Izzy, explaining all this to Torg the night before. From the moment Torg entered the scene in hte last week's strips, she started looking at him and said nothing. He wasn't leaving just because he was pissed, but because of something she revealed to him, and which we're about to learn of now.

I'm pretty sure this isn't the Fate Spider. He would have mentioned the relationships between all this and the Tangle from the instant he opened his mouth. Also, I don't remember him having such a big vocabulary.

Edit: except, of course, that the narrator uses the word "us" when talking about the vrykolakas, which indicates a vykro-vamp is speaking.

Yeah, I'm now back in the Philinon camp.

The chances that the speaker could be anyone other than Urja is extremely small.

My guess is Urja is speaking to Sylvia's and Sam's heads, and she's briefing them in order to join the surviving Vryko and Vorpyr forces in a war against the Strakoi.

Damn, beat me to it. That's exactly my spec at this point. We know Urja is narrating. And she's talking to Sam and Sylvia.

That theory is likely correct, but let me propose an alternative. Urja was severely weakened both from her battle with Kusari and from the death of her queen. It would not necessarily have been very difficult for Hereticorp to capture her. She could be talking to / interrogated by her captors. However, statements like "you know of the vorpyr circles of old" do seem to fit the Sam/Sylvia theory better ... well, I would expect hC to know of such circles better than Sam, but Sylvia obviously knew of them.

But then there's the "Chekhov's gun" theory. Since we know Urja is the speaker, the speaker can't be Pierre, but he could be the audience. Still unlikely because he probably knows more about the Strakoistrat than she does, thus rendering her exposition pointless and bizarrely condescending.

I spec that Urja now suggest a truce, or even an alliance with Sam and Sylvia (who are, of cause, not final death-dead).

From a strategic point of view, they have no bargaining value anymore, and their survival prevents the Strakoistrat from rounding up the last few remaining Vrykolakas in the new world.

True, Urja was mistaken. The pyramid wasn't really the Vrykos strength, it was mostly their weakness. Their strength is that they can quickly rebuild an army because they can make a new vampire each night. 20 can become thousands again in a matter of weeks if they are extremely careful and suffer no or only minor losses. Mind you, the more there are, the greater chance that some will die or at least fail to turn anyone on some nights and the greater likelihood of attracting the attention of hunters, local law enforcement who might at least incidentally wind up killing some of them, etc. But if they are extremely careful in their activities, including limiting those activities to the new world and spreading out by a plan, not staying in any place too long, etc.+ they could probably raise an army to challenge the Strakoi within a few months at least. Granted, there would be no way to kill/disappear so many people without attracting attention, but if there aren't enough hunters in the know, that might not be a huge obstacle. Then they can use a bunch of one day olds with no sires as the front line of their offense against the Strakoi.

Yup, Sam and Sylvia are the only real tool left that can act as a thorn in the side of the Vrykos. I'm sure Urja is much more pissed at the Vrykos for killing her master than she is at Sam for only insulting her.

Still, good job Riff for very probably turning Sam into a bad guy.

You mean the Strakoi?

Booyah! :)

Err... yeah. My bad.

So, i'm thinking Urja's going to revive Sam and Sylvia. If she feels she's not worthy of restarting her pyramid, than I think she's going to try and get revenge on the Strakoi. It would really anger them to not only help the last Lysinda circle vampires but insure their survival and help them start a new circle. She has nothing left to lose and its her best bet of revenge.

Nicely specced.