The Pale

Gnarly

April 1, 2021 Now it's an Official Mystery. Find Otto first (if he hasn't become invisible...)

AgentFink

April 1, 2021 Just another mystery on top of mystery... like a cake! A MYSTERY CAKE.

The Puck 1

April 9, 2021 You! Cake or Death? Cake plz.

Katie

April 1, 2021 GRRRRRR! I am in awe of your ability to simultaneously answer a question while generating a hundred more. I'll be reading this thing 'till I'm 80 and I STILL won't know what's going on.

So two theories:

1. It WAS Otto, and he used some Manchurian Canditate mind-fu to get Gary to give him the gun and forget about the incident. This implies Gary would have to have been programmed at some point, somehow, somewhere. Or,

2. It WASN'T Otto, but some space invaders equivalent, who used alien mind-fu to wipe Gary. Which opens up so many areas for speculation that I won't even go there.

Kudos on finishing another chapter, and with the perfect episode for April Fool's Day, no less. When does the next one start?

AgentFink

April 1, 2021 Hopefully in a week or two!

MK_Wizard

April 1, 2021 Then someone is lying or the person in the video isn't who we think it is.

AgentFink

April 1, 2021 No lies here!

The Puck 1

April 1, 2021 Someone is wearing Otto like a Mask, aren't they?!

AgentFink

April 1, 2021 That's a thought-- hopefully they check on Otto to see how he's doing (:

queenofspain

May 30, 2021 Yee naaldlooshii.

Strannik

April 2, 2021 The night of the game, Otto was drunk and going to hunt wallet-stealing coyote with a rifle.

So the guy in the video cant be Otto. Maybe his brother ?
Or something that, with the ID of Otto, emulated him.

AgentFink

April 2, 2021 I see you've been taking notes :)

Peter Wulfdane

April 2, 2021 Hi there! Bit of a lurker here...but I thought I would chime in and say that this is without doubt the most engaging and suspenseful comic I have ever read. How in the world do you even come up with a story this good?

AgentFink

April 3, 2021 Hello Peter, thanks for the huge compliment!
Hope you don't go back to being a lurker ;)

Listmakerlisa

April 2, 2021 If Otto is hunting coyote, then this is a shape shifter. Or, the coyote IS the shape shifter- the trickster.
The plot thickens...

AgentFink

April 3, 2021 so thicc.

Nic

April 7, 2021 Damn! Took a bit to get going but this is pretty interesting stuff!

AgentFink

April 7, 2021 The Pale reads much better as a binge ;) Waiting on one page a week can be a drag but thanks for sticking with us!

Moey

April 7, 2021 Argh i can't wait D:

Lurker

April 9, 2021 Binge-read this yesterday. Certainly very intriguing suspense being built up here!

In particular I note the large-headed, small-bodied apparition that appeared by Fink's bed at the motel being apparently the same entity that appeared peered over the crew in the bunker. Definitely something going on there.

Also, the white stones left with each victim: could have been the same type of white stone that incapacitated the grandma and aunt? The fact that Fink is in possession of one (or more?) of them is also telling.

Very curious to see where this all leads!

AgentFink

April 19, 2021 Wow! You had a lot to read then! Thanks for the comment-- and it leads somewhere both wonderful and strange!

...(RockB)

April 9, 2021 OK, not Otto Bell. So far, so good (or bad).

But someone (in the widest sense) who can convince Gary in less than 26s to put a gun on the counter, then just takes it and let Gary completely forget the whole event - what for would this someone need a gun in the first place?

Who needs (or at least desperately wants) a gun? Nate.

Hmm.

Now I/we have an explanation for one thing. And as already mentioned, the next bunch of questions opening up.

I like the idea that the shapeshifter who impersonated Otto is the coyote at other times. That would very well fit to Otto's claim that the coyote stole his wallet.

Assuming that to be true:
- The coyote led the sheriff to the murder victim. Hm! If the coyote would be the shapeshifter, then the coyote must have been at Moonbase, where the IDs were. We (and the people around sheriff Logan and agent Fink) think that the young woman was murdered at Moonbase. If that is true, it is very likely that the shapeshifter has something to do with the murder. Why would he/she/it help with the body getting found?

Also, if that above is true... When the sheriff followed the man substitutes, the shapeshifter lost the collected IDs and maybe access to Moonbase altogether - so whoever/whatever set up the man substitutes, it was someone else.

And then McHenry...

Looks like a bit more got answered but this is still majorly convoluted. It feels like I'm missing something and it has to do with McHenry.

What if McHenry was an alien, too?

What if there is more than one shapeshifter and they disagree on the murder stuff?

One shapeshifter is McHenry and Otto.

Another one is the coyote. Coyotes don't need an ID. This one could have set up the man substitutes and thus take Moonbase away from the other. But it doesn't fit to Otto saying that the Coyote stole his wallet.

Argh.

AgentFink

April 19, 2021 I love all your theories-- and Im glad you went back and saw the other pages too!

...(RockB)

April 19, 2021 Thanks! :-)

Oldarmourer

April 13, 2021
yee naaldlooshii ?

AgentFink

April 19, 2021 I know we've all seen that word before, right?

Oldarmourer

April 20, 2021 'Checkov's name' and only a hundred odd words in ;)

Honzinator

April 19, 2021 So ... Fink's face-blindness will actually turn out to be helpful when something else pulls off this creepy resemblance trick, I expect.

AgentFink

April 19, 2021 ;)