The Hunter and the Veil
| The Hunter and the Veil | ||||
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[[File:{{#setmainimage:TheHunterAndTheVeil.jpg}}|250px]] | ||||
| Publication information | ||||
| Publisher | Wizards of the Coast | |||
| Publication period | July 30 - August 13, 2008 | |||
| URL | The Hunter and the Veil | |||
| Creative team | ||||
| Writer(s) | Doug Beyer, Jenna Helland | |||
| Art director | Jeremy Jarvis | |||
| Illustrator(s) | Jason Shawn Alexander | |||
| Letterer(s) | Jen Page | |||
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The Hunter and the Veil is a webcomic about Garruk and Liliana, published in 2008. It introduces the Chain Veil and depicts Liliana using it to inflict a seemingly unbreakable curse on Garruk. The comic was later published on paper in Path of the Planeswalker.
Plot
Part 1
Shandalar. Garruk and a beast called Ursoth track each other through a forest, while Garruk reflects on the insults he receives from others and his past mistakes while hunting on Zendikar. After incapacitating the beast, he binds it to himself.
Part 2
Liliana seeks the Chain Veil as the payment demanded by Kothophed for his role in granting her immortality. She is followed by aggressive beasts, which kill her mount and pursue her into the mausoleum housing the Veil. She takes the Veil from the Ogre skeleton wearing it, animates the skeleton to fight off the beasts, and against the earlier commands and advice of Kothophed, channels power from the Veil.
Later, Garruk arrives and inspects the corpse of one of the beasts slain by Liliana.
Part 3
Spirits attached to the Veil narrate, expressing hope that Liliana will prove to be their "vessel" and naming the Veil she holds as merely a key. As she channels from the Veil, Liliana begins to hear the spirits' voices, and the apparent Veil shatters, opening a magical gateway on the wall of the crypt. Garruk enters and attempts to stop her from continuing deeper. She proceeds despite his protestations. The spirits describe the crypt as "hallowed ground", where "the seed took root" and "the void drew its first breath".
Garruk and the one he calls a "shadowmage" have their first confrontation. The hunter attacks Liliana, but she entangles him in shadowy tendrils and reaches an altar holding the true Chain Veil, where the spirits promise that she is "a child compared to what [she will] become", and that the Veil will "mask [her] soul from those who would take it". Garruk breaks free by taking on a form reminiscent of the Ursoth, but Liliana slips the Chain Veil over her face and invokes its power to curse him.
As Liliana planeswalks away, the spirits acknowledge that Garruk will chase her indefinitely, exactly as they desire.