This article is about the comic. For the method of discovering the Avatar, see Avatar relics.
"This place reminds you of home, right? All these mountains... Airbenders would have loved to stay here. They would have been attracted to the place." "Yeah. A few of them probably were."
— Katara and Aang reflecting on deceased airbenders.
"Relics" is a comic book that takes place in Book One: Water, originally released by Nick Magazine. It was later recycled for Free Comic Book Day 2011, then was finally re-released by Dark Horse Comics in The Lost Adventures.
As Team Avatar stops at an Earth Kingdom village to restock for their journey to the North Pole, Aang discovers from a merchant that he may not be the last airbender and ventures out on his own to uncover the truth.
Team Avatar tours a small Earth Kingdomtrading village during their journey to the Northern Water Tribe in search of supplies. While there, Aang meets a merchant who attempts to sell him an authentic Air Nomad pendant. The merchant claims that the necklace is in fact not ancient, and the seller had recently traded it for medicinal supplies. Aang finds out that the necklace comes from caves in the mountains and, while Katara and Sokka are sleeping, sneaks off in order to investigate. When Aang arrives to the cave, he finds many Air Nomad artifacts and also meets Admiral Zhao. Zhao's troops quickly capture Aang and show him the merchant who helped lure him into the cave, much like some of the Air Nomad Genocide survivors were lured into the caves and killed by Sozin. However, using the artifacts in the cave, Aang manages to free himself and get back to Katara and Sokka, who have been searching for him since his disappearance.
This comic takes place in Book One: Water at some time after "The Blue Spirit", as Zhao is revealed to be an admiral.
This comic reveals that some airbenders did survive the initial attack on the air temples and began to regroup in the Earth Kingdom, but were eventually drawn to caves carved by the Fire Nation that they decorated with Air Nomad artifacts. Using these caves, Sozin sent out rumors saying the Air Nomads could find refuge in these caves, but killed the survivors who went there.
A stupa is a Buddhist structure typically built to contain the remains of a famous monk. The eyes painted on the four sides represent the all-seeing gaze of the Buddha.
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