The current storyline (that I'm posting to [email protected]) involving Ivan (a.k.a. The Apprentice) spans a good number of comics, and especially if you're new to Oglaf or just poking your head in every once in a while, it might be confusing. I've written a strip-by-strip guide to the comic that explains the context of what's going on. Each one marked as spoilers, so you can read them at your own pace. I've linked to the ones already posted here on Lemmy, and I'll update the rest of the strips to link them as they get posted here as well.

• Blanket ::: spoiler Context This is really the start of the arc. We see The Mistress collecting tributes, and note that she prizes her little horror. If anything were to happen to it, that person would surely regret it. :::

• Portrait ::: spoiler Context Here we see the setup for how things go awry. The Incense of Bad Decisions makes The Mistress think it's a good idea to put said incense in a room with Ivan and a bunch of magical artifacts, notably the Arrow of Regret and the Lizard of Guilt. :::

• Shaft 1 ::: spoiler Context Note the Incense of Bad Decisions making things hazy, and affecting Ivan. We see several crap tributes, and Ivan picks up one called the Arrow of Regret. He immediately regrets it as it magically kills the guard in the room. :::

• Shaft 2 ::: spoiler Context Things get far worse as the Arrow of Regret next kills The Mistress' prized horror. The Incense of Bad Decisions continues to affect Ivan, and he tries to just throw the body out the window and gets the monster's blood on his hands. When it hits the ground, it also reactivates the Arrow of Regret, which goes on to kill another guard. :::

• Shaft 3 ::: spoiler Context Ivan tries to hide his tracks and blame some assassins. The Lizard of Guilt yells that it was Ivan's fault, so he throws that out the window as well. He's immediately confronted by guards outside the door. :::

• Shaft 4 ::: spoiler Context Ivan catches a break and people believe his story. He tries to wash the monster's blood off his hands, and the Lizard of Guilt has come back as a ghost to haunt him. We also see in the epilogue that the Arrow of Regret has a chain reaction effect. When it hits the ground, it reactivates. :::

• The Immaculate City 1 ::: spoiler Context Ivan finds the consul that brought the monster tribute and asks if he has another one, presumably to buy it from him. The consul gives unhelpful answers. :::

• The Immaculate City 2 ::: spoiler Context The consul was actually giving Ivan useful answers. There's a magical city right outside The Mistress' castle called Vanorva that you can only see if you're a virgin (blowjobs don't count). :::

• Stalker 1 ::: spoiler Context Ivan tries to leave to go to Vanorva, but the guards won't let him. The guards aren't virgins and can't see Vanorva :::

• Stalker 2 ::: spoiler Context Ivan gets desperate and the guard knocks him out. The weird nurse things let him escape. :::

• Night Of Shame ::: spoiler Context We see Ivan escaping, and also see that the Lizard of Guilt can't haunt anyone other than Ivan, so it decides to follow him around. :::

• In 1 ::: spoiler Context Ivan reaches Vanorva. The guards are surprised and suspicious of the outsider. :::

• In 2 ::: spoiler Context Ivan claims he does lots of sex things, which becomes the source of his fame in the city. :::

• In 3 ::: spoiler Context Ivan manages to force his way in, which scares the city folk to the point that they hang up wanted posters. It's unclear why they think he can destroy the city. :::

• Dawn Of The Slut ::: spoiler Context Ivan wanders around and finds a place that sells the monsters he's looking for. :::

• Undercroft ::: spoiler Context The mistress finds out that Ivan escaped and is not happy :::

• High Noon 1 ::: spoiler Context We switch to city inhabitants arguing about Ivan. They mention that people have been disappearing, which explains why the guards were so scared of him. Somehow people have been disappearing and some people blame Ivan. Not sure why "He's a customer" is significant, other than that Ivan wants to buy a monster. :::

• High Noon 2 ::: spoiler Context Ivan successfully gets a monster and runs off with it. It bites him through the bag he's holding it in. :::

• High Noon 3 ::: spoiler Context Ivan opens the bag to look at the monster and it explodes in the sunlight. We meet Navaan for the first time, and she'll become a regular character. :::

• High Noon 4 ::: spoiler Context Navaan drugs Ivan and drags him off somewhere. :::

• "Nightfall" 1 ::: spoiler Context Ivan wakes up and Navaan has tied him up. The skulls and "You don't have to do this" painted on a beam imply that she's been killing people. Notice that she has sharp little fangs. :::

• "Nightfall" 2 ::: spoiler Context Navaan has been killing people, and we discover that her friends will kill her if she doesn't remain a virgin. However, she's horny and wants to try out some sex acts that will allow her to keep her virginity while exploring a bit. She takes the wanted poster at face value and assumes Ivan is sexually experienced to the point where he knows sex acts that she's never heard of. :::

• "Nightfall" 3 ::: spoiler Context They start doing various sex acts, and then we discover that Ivan still has the spell on him that turns his cum into little sprites. He sets an unreasonably high standard for other men. :::

• Two Reports ::: spoiler Context The cumsprite makes its way back to The Mistress and tells them where Ivan is. :::

• Potion Of Girlfriend 1 ::: spoiler Context Ivan and Navaan continue their fun until she remembers that she's supposed to be waiting for a signal. It's kind of unclear what the signal is, but probably an audible one that she hears? You can see her fangs more clearly. We also assume that her friends are the people chasing Ivan. :::

• Potion Of Girlfriend 2 ::: spoiler Context Navaan scrambles to react to the signal, and the people chasing Ivan all find what she and Ivan are up to. Navaan tries to cover up the fact that she and Ivan were having fun by accusing him of tricking her. She splashes some potion on him and tells him to enjoy being butchered. This is how she's been disappearing people :::

• Potion Of Girlfriend 3 ::: spoiler Context The potion puts Ivan into a weird dream state where he has sex and is no longer a virgin, at least according to the magic laws of Vanorva. :::

• Potion Of Girlfriend 4 ::: spoiler Context Ivan starts disappearing from Vanorva since he is no longer a virgin. He reappears in the regular world, where Naveen's "friends" are waiting. It's a little hard to see, but notice that they all have fangs. They're a bunch of vampires that have been using Naveen to infiltrate Vanorva and send them virgins by using the "Potion of Girlfriend" to kick them out of Vanorva and into the waiting crowd of vampires. :::

• Dearest 1 ::: spoiler Context Ivan is still under the effect of the potion and is frantically searching for his dream girlfriend Felicia. The vampires point him towards the trees and he runs that way, until the potion's effects get too weird. :::

• Dearest 2 ::: spoiler Context Ivan snaps out of the potion's effect and starts running away from the trees that the vampires want him to go towards. One of the vampires tries to restart the potion's effect :::

• Dearest 3 ::: spoiler Context We see why the vampires were pointing him towards the trees. There's more vampires waiting, ready to eat him. One of them is dressed like Felicia, to help the potion's illusion. :::

• Lassie 1 ::: spoiler Context Navaan splashes the Felicia potion on the city people. We see again that she's been the one disappearing people and knows they're getting murdered. :::

• Lassie 2 ::: spoiler Context The city people all enter the Felicia dream together, making for a weird romance. Still counts as losing their virginity, though. :::

• Lassie 3 ::: spoiler Context The city people disappear outside of Vanorva as well, now that the city's magic thinks they're not virgins. They're also still the potion's effects and want Felicia. They and the vampires fight and the vampires win and start eating them. This leads to them being a little distracted, so when Ivan again gets an adverse reaction to the potion's effects and snaps out of it, it takes them a bit to start chasing after him. :::

• Lassie 4 ::: spoiler Context Ivan runs back to The Mistress' castle, and the guards there take out the vampires chasing him. :::

• Lassie 5 ::: spoiler Context Ivan reaches The Mistress' castle and she is very displeased. The Lizard of guilt is back :::

• Albatross 1 ::: spoiler Context The Mistress is about to punish Ivan, but the Lizard of Guilt is distracting him. :::

• Albatross 2 ::: spoiler Context The Lizard of Guilt distracts Ivan so much that he yells at it. The Mistress can't see it, and assumes Ivan was yelling at her, shredding any trace of mercy she might have had. We see the Arrow of Regret return, apparently it won't reactivate if you leave it in the last body it pierced. :::

• Albatross 3 ::: spoiler Context Ivan gets shot by the Arrow of Regret. and seemingly dies, but the Lizard of Guilt points out that he's still alive. Sadly, this seems to be the last time he's in any Oglaf comic. I couldn't find another one with him in it, even with that much of a lead-in. :::

• Lament 1 ::: spoiler Context They decide to have a funeral for Ivan. The title text says that they usually don't have funerals for apprentices, but this ambassador seems to have enjoyed using Ivan as his plaything, so it's probably because they felt like having a funeral. The ambassador discovers Ivan's not dead and goes to finish the job himself. :::

• Lament 2 ::: spoiler Context Luckily for Ivan, the ambassador's funeral drugs kick in and he doesn't finish the smothering. This is the last we see of Ivan. The writers have said they're bringing him back, but it doesn't look like there's any rush.

  Yes, they are coming back. We're still writing, but it's a long-arse fukken EPIC of a story so it's still got some work to do on it... :::

• Wake 1 ::: spoiler Context Navaan is still in Vanorva. She finds another inhabitant and is still horny and wants to doink him. :::

• Wake 2 ::: spoiler Context She successfully gets penetrated, which lifts an ancient curse. She doesn't care. :::

• Wake 3 ::: spoiler Context Vanorva disappears and this is the end of the plotline. We'll see Navaan again, but off doing her own thing since her comrades are all probably dead and Vanorva has disappeared. :::

• ::: spoiler tl;dr Ivan fucked up and accidentally kills The Mistress' favorite pet. He tries to cover it up by buying a replacement monster at a magical city nearby that only virgins can see. The city is suspicious of outsiders because the inhabitants have been disappearing. It turns out that the killer is a vampire that splashes "Potion of Girlfriend" on people she abducts, which activates a dream state in which they have sex, which is enough to disqualify them as virgins according to the magic of Vanorva. Her vampire friends are waiting for the people she sends out of Vanorva and they cook and eat the person. Ivan manages to escape, but The Mistress is pissed at him and has him apparently killed. The vampire abductor successfully has sex with one of the other inhabitants and it breaks the curse of Vanorva, causing the city to disappear. :::

Let me know if I've missed or messed up anything, or if there's better explanations I should add!