Grrl Power #1252 – Body lock
Dabbler’s stash probably looks like a 20 year WoW* veteran’s stash, ready to outfit any new toon of any class from level 1-99** with uniques and set items, but also neato rares and honestly a lot of trash, because she has a lot more fun acquiring stuff than she does OCD sorting it.
This technique of Dabbler’s is a variation of a known solution for Aetholiths who commit body and memory-napping, so Lapha shouldn’t be too surprised by this outcome. And if you’re like “Hey, she seemed okay with dying earlier when she ditched Sydney.” That’s because she (just her ‘flame’) was laying on a concrete floor, and not piloting a bioroid that’s injecting her with a shitload of fear hormones at the news that she needs to come to terms with her potential mortality.
* Does WoW even have a massive shared stash like that? Maybe Diablo 3 or Path of Exile would be a better example. You know what I mean. In my lifetime I’ve put maybe 25 hours into MMOs. The idea of heroically killing the evil what’s it only for him to respawn 5 minutes later and you run into the next guy to heroically kill the evil whosamajig as you’re walking back to town from the dungeon of where ever. The whole setup just kind of highlights the kind of pointless time sink of the endeavor for me. I have caught myself thinking “Is this what girlfriends feel like when they see guys playing video games?” And then I squashed that thought so playing single player games (and the occasional co-op) didn’t depress me.
My other complaint about MMOs is that often the leveling up is so quantumly incremental it just isn’t fun for me. Spending 3 hours to level up to get 1% better chance to block with your shield FUCKING SUUUUUCKS. I want shit like in Elder Scrolls: Oblivion where I maxed out my enchanting, made armor with a total of 125 bonus Stealth, on top of my maxed out Stealth skill, went into an Oblivion portal, snuck my way all the way to the end, crouch-walking within feet of demons that outleveled me by 10 or more levels, going right up to the stone McGuffin thing at the end of the portal and breaking it or taking it or whatever you did and then I think, “I have won this game. Doesn’t matter that I’ve barely scratched the main storyline. I have properly beat this game.” That shit is fun. Is it any wonder my favorite novels always involve an OP MC?
Well, okay, may absolute favorite novels are the Justicar series by Paul Kidd. Jus wasn’t OP in that, but he was wildly competent and the writing was excellent and Escalla and Cinders were funny. It’s a fucking shame it only has 249 reviews on Amazon. I’m sure the reviews of a book are a reliable reflection of sales. That series should have 78,000 reviews per book.
BUT – probably the next 9 novels in my top ten have an OP MC, or at least the MC has several awesome mic drop moments where he has his bubble gum and kicks ass too.
** I have no idea what the maximum level in WoW is at this point, and I don’t care enough to google it.
The new vote incentive is up!
Every so often I get the urge to try and draw Maxima all properly shiny, and this… isn’t my favorite attempt if I’m honest. I’ve been sitting on this for a little while doing little tweaks, and decided to finally publish it cause I’m already behind on these. The next one will (almost definitely) resume the trend of including a little mini comic to extend the scene a bit.
As usual, Patreon has some outfit variations as well as sans flagrante.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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First?
I thought that saying that made it become untrue.
It’s also pointless. If you don’t have anything more interesting to say, why chime in?
Zack Tilly: simply saying ‘First’ invalidates the posting, which makes BlokeinClogland below the first legit post :)
Agreed
It was a continuation of last week. I had a Highlander meme ready to go but I couldn’t post it.
I actually care not if I am first or last, the story is amazing that’s good enough for me.
“You are now imprisoned, so you can be imprisoned. Have A Nice Day!”
That does not solve the knowledge of state secrets issue.
But it DOES solve the being able to swap bodies and possess others issue. Now she can be safely put in containment without breaking basic human rights. Or… just basic rights, I guess, as she’s not human.
Wait, Dabbler only has four digits on each hand? How have I never noticed that before?
and she has only 2 toes on each foot that touch the ground; her legs are set up like those of a goat. When using a human illusion, she shows the extra finger, but the ring finger is not really there.
When you have four hands, fewer digits per hand are just fine. She still has 12 fingers (and four thumbs), more than any human has.
A hand only needs 3 fingers, one of them opposable (see “thumb”) for full dexterity. Try twirling a pencil with 3 fingers; then try it with 2. If a hand only has 2 fngers, the entity needs more hands to compensate. This has real-world implications for the design of robot hands.
There’s a big step from two fingers to three fingers, after that there’s diminishing returns, but a small number of people born with six fingers have shown enhanced dexterity, including the ability to tie their shoelaces one handed…
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10306-w
That’s true, but lets face it, the little finger (except in a few cases) doesn’t really do all the much, I used to work with a guy that lost 2 fingers (index and middle) on his left hand, I barely noticed it once I got used to it. He said it was the same for him, other than playing the piano or typing. I had my left hand crushed in a car accident, it works but my little and ring fingers are barely useful. Typing and playing my guitar is the only things affected for me.
Just disputing the “full” there. There are diminishing returns, sure, but they continue at least to 6 fingers, empirically.
Personally I’ve got this short finger birth defect; Aside from not being able to play piano, and finding it REALLY hard to find gloves that fit properly, I don’t find it causes many problems. But I’m sure I’d be of a different opinion if I’d grown up used to having normal length fingers, and suddenly woke up one day with 50% shorter fingers.
I had to google it: WoW level cap is at 70. Not “still”, but “again”. It kept rising until 120 was converted to 50.
I don’t like playing MMORPGs though because there’s always a novel’s worth of stuff to read up on until you know the same things about skill chains, rare items and whatnot that you knew from the previous game you played. For MMOs I prefer Islands of Insight, which is about solving logic puzzles instead of beating up monsters.
That’s why I like ‘The Elder Scrolls Online’. The level cap has been 50 since the beginning. They added the Champion Point System which was a nice addition, especially as it’s a account-wide system. When you hit level 50 you gain champion points with which you can use to adapt the game to your play style. More importantly, they are account-wide and if you start a new character, these points are immediately available, making the game a little easier.
It’s also not as equipment heavy as WOW. I’ve been playing with level 5 gear up to level 40 at least once.
But the most fun part? It allows you to play the way you want. Sure you can do questing and PVP, but you can also reach level 50 by just walking around and discovering stuff.
That’s how Dark Age of Camelot did it
Oof. No more leashing bodies after stubbing your toe.
Guessing Dabbler pulled up the runes and she did know that sort of innate body swap binding was there.
My problem with MMOs is I’m an introvert. I enjoy socializing, but it’s draining, and I need to recharge, which I can’t do if I have to deal with other players. I prefer a nice single player game where I can concentrate on personal goals like uniting Africa or eating the Pope.
Same, plus, in no rush to become a ‘MEG’ (Mythical End-Gamer, someone who rushes to the end, skipping 90% of the game, and then complain there is nothing to do and that the game is stupid)
Same as well. I mostly played MMOs by myself, probably because I never played far enough for parties to be a requirement.
I didn’t know about MEGs. Tbh people like that are among the reasons why I don’t socialize much. So many extraverted people out there who love socializing by arguing and/or talking over each other, and mostly about inane topics. No wonder I prefer quality over quantity when socializing.
But Islands of Insight is basically a single player game where other people are running around the map as well. :-) Socializing is an option, but unless you want to discuss riddles together I don’t see any advantage in doing so.
I probably shouldn’t be wondering if my Steam account is still open during finals week… ^-^;
I find FFXIV to be a nice balance, which is why I have stuck with it and no other MMO.
I *can* connect with other players and do content together, or I can be semi-social and run Duty Finder roulettes without needing to do much more than say “Hello” and “GG” (assuming nobody turns out to be a screw-up). Or I can ignore everyone and go do some stuff that involves solo-grinding and play some YouTube or anime videos.
And while a reasonably deep understanding of mechanics is eventually needed, this game is not all about the end-game grind. I have a friend who started playing about six months ago and has just cleared the first expansion, because she has decided she wants to enjoy all the content at each expansion. She *could* be done with the main story if she focused on the MSQ alone, but there is a lot of side content and there is no reason to rush the end game. It will be there waiting for you, and as the dungeons Level Sync, you can always play with someone in a lower-level dungeon.
IMO, FFXIV is best enjoyed by trying to sincerely engage with the story. Some expansions have better main story/writing than others, but all of it is enjoyable enough as long as you are willing to engage with it. Cynicism will wreck the experience, though that can be said about most stories.
Every time I see a reference to Final Fantasy, the question runs through my mind….
What does “Final Fantasy XIV” say about the finality of fantasies I through XIII?
Not that it actually matters at all, it’s just something that always runs through my mind.
I guess I don’t get why or how most people name things because lots of names make no sense to me.
The first Final Fantasy was named such because they expected the company to go under after it was released. They presumably continued to use the name because the first one was so successful that it saved the company, and they were hoping name recognition would keep people buying them. Seems to have worked out alright.
Alien equivalent of a chastity belt. Sounds on par for Dabbler.
The Justicar books are great. The real funny part is that most of my friends considered them non-canon.
Until one evening that is. It’s one of the memories that stuck. A friend of mine called nearly incoherent. He had been reading the latest ‘War of the Spider Queen’ novel and the main characters stumbled over the remains of the third Justicar novel.
And how they wondered what could have happened here, who could have been responsible for so much destruction. Considering the power of the characters in the War of the Spider Queen books, they would have been sorely disappointed by Justicar and company.
Now I have to read that series! I passed on it back when it was published because I thought the J&E books had been ignored when it was written.
Ah, Greyhawk…
So many fond memories.
Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life, Lapha! Now, you get to understand this silly thing called ‘consequences’. Then again, if she is anything like certain US political figures, (MTG and her wanna be emperor boss) I doubt the lesson will take, but one can always hope.
Okay, this is your new accommodations. That guy across the hall is Kevin. Say “Hello,” Kevin.
Kevin left the planet a little while ago
I think they were considering it but it hasnt actually happened yet, unless offscreen without DaveB mentioning it.
Nope, Max said she’d pitch it to the higher-ups, but that was before TGoth signed up with Big D.
Try to imagine how badly that could go.
I can still see certain people in both the brass and in Congress thinking ‘this will not cost us any money to keep him detained, and we might even be able to make some money by making a contractual agreement with Tom for use of Kevin’ (with Kevin’s agreement since he came up with the initial idea so it’s not considered like… slavery or something).
But yeah, when I said ‘they were considering it’ I meant Maxima was considering pitching it to the higher ups (as she thought Kevin was making some good points), but couldnt authorize it herself since it wanst her call.
As for how badly it would go, I’m not sure – there’s a tie-in with Deus via Tom, and I’m thinking quite a few people in Congress owe Deus favors, or would want Deus to owe them a favor (although I’m not entirely sure how that might work since it’s Tom owing a favor to Deus, and Deus owing a favor to someone in Congress.
When we get to the, “Your actual job is preserving the status quo and eventually that will bring us into conflict” portion of the program, I do not want Kevin aimed at Our Gang, for several reasons.
That’s a fair enough point, and one I agree with because I consider Kevin to be a MASSIVE threat. But I’m just arguing that there might be some in the brass, or more likely in Congress, who might not think that far ahead, or might consider it unlikely and would put their own military or political advancement over the safety of the USA (or Earth as a whole) in the long term. It would not exactly be unheard of for that to happen.
Also, don’t forget all the people who want benefits now and couldn’t care less about future problems, because they are far too busy focusing on the now.
‘Hindsight is always clearer than foresight, but nowhere remotely as valuable.’ — Dwight D Eisenhower as quoted by General Andrew Jackson Goodpaster USA Retired.
Yep, very true.
The lesson NEVER takes. We pretty much have to relearn it every few generations or so.
That is, of course why factual, documented history is NEVER a valid subject for study in public schools. Propaganda is much easier to remember, so that is what is taught even if it is 99.99% BS.
Just make up whatever sells your point to whatever rabble you are rousing today and it is all good. Oh, and make sure that anyone who DARES to fact check you gets stood up agai8nst a wall. Cannot forget that when you want to be Emperor. Then again, ’emperor’ is actually a hell of a lot of work, just like ‘king’ and incompetent ones usually end very badly. But as long as they die horribly with more stuff, I guess it is all good no matter how many other people die in the process.
Fuck off. Dave has put political comments out of bounds here.
not my circus, not my monkeys
Has he now? And designated you as the comment police as well?
You’ve engaged in plenty of political discussion over the years here yourself. Or would that be why you’re under the impression that political comments are off-limits here, because Dave shut down a discussion you were involved in?
He has mentioned not wanting the comments to get too political, I think. Several times, in past blurbs I think, although there have been things on the cusp of political arguments (although that tends to be started by commenters, not by DaveB).
Plus when comment boards get too political it tends to ruin a comment section, throw it completely off track, or turn comment sections into sounding boards instead… so I can definitely see where SFCGator is coming from. Especially since there’s nothing in this particular comic which was even remotely a reason to get into RL political figures other than an intent to ‘force things to become political in order to start a flame war.’
These days I think every political discussion devolves into name-calling and vitriol and refusal to even believe the same version of events. The exception, of course, is voting, and making sure your vote is counted. As long as we do not tolerate bullshit or election denial, voting, absolutely every time, can fix the problem.
Pretty sure even voting, making sure votes are counted, making sure illegal votes are not counted, the timing of when votes are tallied and allowed, the method by which votes are allowed, the security of votes, and the legality of each vote devolves into name calling and vitriol as well. :)
Got you wrapped around her finger…
Huh. Grabbing Dabbler by her shirt doesn’t really give the same feel when it’s a strappy thing as grabbing someone’s t-shirt would.
Looks like Paul Kidd’s stuff isn’t available in the UK
I managed to get those books in the UK, although I don’t remember how. And they are incredibly funny.
The books were published back in early 2000s, and AFAIK, haven’t been reprinted.
Maybe you should try the Audible versions, the reader, Bernard Setaro Clark, dies an excelent job with the distinctive voices.
Sorry, typo.
“Does an excelent job with the distinctive voices”
Wait, so 1% or so are immortal or semi-immortal in the universe? Thats a big number xd
Well, plus or minus a few percent.
Or, the error bar here is so huge that it boils down to nothing more than “Welcome to the vast majority”.
“The 1%” and “the 99%” are often used informally to differentiate between “the lucky ones/elites” and “the rest of us,” respectively, rather than being formal percentages. In some cases, the “1%” are actually more common than 1/100, and in other cases they’re actually much less common than that. I’d imagine in this case it’s the latter, and people who can survive the death of their body are markedly rarer than 1/100.
It also shows that Occupy Wallstreet rather underestimated the scope of the problem.
While they were talking about the 1% or the .1%
they really should have been talking about the
1% of the 1% of the 1% of the 1%
To find the number of people who own half of all the privately held wealth in the USA.
Though I guess they could have dropped the last 1% to find the number of people who own pretty much everything.
Tell me you’re completely innumerate without telling me you’re completely innumerate.
But hey, feel free to show us your alleged math on your claim, so we can all have a good hearty laugh.
Here, I’ll help you out a bit: “1% of the 1% of the 1% of the 1%” in “the USA” is 3.3 people.
You claim that those 3.3 people “own half of all the privately held wealth in the USA”. Total privately held wealth in the US is about $147 trillion. Half of that is (try to keep up), $73.5 trillion.
So you’re claiming that about three people in the US are worth an average of 73.5/3 = $24.5 trillion each.
However, the richest person in the USA currently is Elon Musk, with a worth of about $251 billion, way the hell less than $24.5 trillion.
Your claim doesn’t pass the “two minutes with Google and a calculator” laugh test. What’s your excuse for not checking it yourself before you posted it?
In my experience the “wEAltH iNeqUAliTY” people are usually completely full of crap, and you’re not helping that streak.
Another fun game they play is the “so-and-so has more wealth than X% of Americans combined!!!11l!eleven1!!” What they forget to tell you is that a homeless guy who has found a single dollar bill on the sidewalk has more wealth than about the bottom 30% of the country combined, too (that’s about 100 million people), but that doesn’t mean what it sounds like. What it actually means is that at any given time 20-something percent of people have (on paper) a negative net worth (temporarily) because of loans and other kinds of obligations, even though they may have jobs and cars and homes, and another 10-something percent have low enough positive net worth (for similar reasons) that you can lump them in with all the negative-worthers and still get a net grand total of less than $1. So beware of “more wealth than X% of the country” claims; they’re used as misleading propaganda, not illumination.
Ah, yes, this guy’s math was hyperbolic so income inequality isn’t real and the parasitic owning class don’t exist, actually. Incredible. That’s really encouraging to know!
I was worried that those with hundreds of thousands of dollars to spare on risky business propositions have a clear and tangible advantage over people for whom trying to take out a loan has infinitely worse consequences if their startup doesn’t work out, and those whose companies have billion-dollar war chests they can use to undercut smaller businesses until they can seize a virtual monopoly or bribe politicians to pass laws they’ve written to benefit themselves were ruining the world, but according to you, that’s fine actually because people who are literally starving and freezing in poverty without homes or clean water can technically be said to possess more money than a lot of people! Wow!
Tell me you lack basic empathy for other human beings without telling me you lack basic empathy for other human beings.
The poster may have the specific details details wrong, but the larger point remains correct.
Kindly take a seat, one large chill pill, and get them out of a wad.
To be fair in my country a G7 one and not the poorest of G7 had $3.130 trillion GDP
Bernard Arnaud was $ 238.5 Billions -second place – in 2023
G7 is Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States
It’s hyperbolic but inequality had risen in France since the 2000’s, durring the period of 1970’s and 1980’s poverty rate had plmmeted in france it had stabilized in 2000’s and risen since 2004.
The same phenomenon was occurred in US , trickle down economics is a scam.Even IMF agree to this fact …
“1980’s poverty rate had plmmetedplmmeted” -> it’s 1980’s poverty rate had plummeted…
Sorry for the typing mistake
France ” privately held wealth ” is $ 15.7 trillions..
15.7 /2= 7.85 it’s 7 850 billions about 33 Bernard Arnaud
73 500 billions is about 293 Elon Musk
France population is 68 millions US population is about 335 millions about 5 times larger …
And Elon Musk and Bernard Arnaud are in the same league – 251 vs 238.5 –
813 billionaires in USA , 53 in France …
If the number of billionaires by population is the same it will be:
162 in France if France was like US.
265 in US if US is like France.
mate – you just failed your own test, and i dont even need the calculator OR google…just the numbers you have given
24 trillion is way more than 251 billion? lets see… how far off is that? about a factor of 100… so its 1% of the expectation if the OP was pretty accurate
but you are right… that is off… so lets drop the last 1% of… from the original claim
that means with your calculations you only have to spread that wealth across 330 people to have more than half of it among them and that 250 billion figure is almost exactly on that even split between them
now THAT is actually in a realistic ballpark – but since you used to top end of the richest folks, thats of course not representative, so you probably have to go back a bit more to get the actual number – but its unlikely that you have to go back much more than one order of magnitude (thats another decimal point)
so the top 10% of the 1% of the 1% of the population
also to put some of those numbers in perspective… the median networth of US americans is around 120k – compare that to that 250 billion net worth… that means one person has the networth equivalent of about 2 million average okay off people
oh and apparently in the same analysis from the federal reserve, they found that the bottom 50% of the country own only 1% of the wealth, while the top 10% account for 75% of the wealth (and logically, the 40% in between those account for the remaining 24%)
Not that locking her into her body is an unreasonable punishment, but I wonder how she got authorization from galactic law enforcement so quickly.
Who says she did?
Ellipsis, or Elli
Yeah, this whole operation could end up being a real headache for Ariana. They need to contact whatever polity Lapha is a citizen of, and they *definitely* need to return Garamm, since they flat-out kidnapped him. The U.S. can get away with that on Earth due to Might Makes Right, but in galactic terms Earth is more analogous to South Sudan, if South Sudan had a squadron of F-35s.
Honestly, I kinda get the feeling space – or at least places like the Demon University and that station Sydney warped to – has a bit of a “Wild West” nature to it. Note Cora got a pass for using hilariously-excessive force against the thugs that tried to attack her and Sydney, on account of having personally saved the station on multiple occasions (it didn’t spare her the police’s grumbling, but she didn’t get so much as a fine IIRC), and that she probably went and captured Garamm without any sort of official request, more Dabbler texting her “Hey, this bitch bodysnatched one of my sister’s friends and tried to bodysnatch Sydney. Go rescue Tenri from her accomplice and bring me the bitch’s shell, since Maxima thinks its ‘cruel’ to leave her stuck in the Aetholith-mate.” So he would have been brought to Archon’s jurisdiction by a third party, with any blame for this being placed on Cora and Dabbler. And I’d honestly imagine TPTB would prefer to keep as much of a lid on the whole “Aetholith abduction” thing as possible so as to prevent a panic (and discrimination against the Aetholiths), plus there’s the fact Cora rescued one of their citizens (Tenri) in the process, so they probably won’t raise a big stink about the abduction or trying to get them extradited.
I imagine it would be like, “So, Lapha, you f****d around with people from a world that isn’t even a part of the Federated Imperium and you got your ass handed to you. Sucks to be you.” As for Garamm, unless he is on some sort of parole, who is going to notice if he doesn’t show up?
Problem is, that just means people from Dirt can do whatever the fuck they want, specially if they claim they are doing it in retaliation (and who is going to dispute it? the one they retaliated on is dead, or worse)
It’s rather odd that you think that Earth has to do anything in particular.
Because unless a specific country or countries have treaties with specific extra-terrestrial bodies, there are no legal requirements to do anything at all. Even here on non-Grrrlpower Earth, countries have no obligation to extradite a non-citizen to another country unless there is a preexisting extradition treaty with that country, the crime they are accused of is also a crime in the country holding them, and the country holding them believes that the punishment awaiting them is not excessive by their own local standards (For instance, many countries refuse to extradite accused murderers unless the country that filed for extradition guarantees that the death penalty will not be applied).
In Lapha’s case, she was captured attempting kidnapping … on Earth, in the USA. And had attempted it before, but escaped. Garamm? Her accomplice in both attempts. And, officially, there is no record of HOW he ended up in ARC custody – legally, he was brought in by non-official Concerned Bystanders who found him … somewhere. Yes, he might also be wanted for being an accomplice to Lapha’s college bodynapping, but ARC is holding him for being a party to two separate kidnapping attempts in the USA.
I could also argue that, unless there are legal rulings explicitly granting both of them the legal status of “Human”, their legal status is rather ambiguous. Should they be treated as “Human” in terms of treatment and rights? Morally, I’d say yes. Legally? They have less protection than a fox raiding a farmer’s henhouse.
Yes, but: kidnapping citizens of other countries will piss those countries off, even if you don’t have any treaties with them. The reverse is also trues, so they can retaliate by, say, kidnapping a few random world leaders. Best to be nice to the bigger kids, rather than tweaking their noses.
Under US law Garamm is just as guilty as Lapha. They’re both parties to a conspiracy to commit kidnapping *and* under the Felony Conspiracy rule they’re both on the hook for Lapha’s extortion and attempted murder.
Not JUST people from Dirt. I think there is general accountability problem in universe, that is, as long as you do things on level of individuals (and not like full scale war), most of universe won’t care. In this situation, only Aetholith “government” and Garamm’s country “government” might care, and if they are known criminals probably not even them.
There’s a reason human legends of “demons” have them behaving rather badly after all.
Legality aside, there is the matter traipsing halfway across the galaxy just to to deal with the problems generated by a couple of low level miscreants. Cora and others may have the resources but at least per Tenri’s point of view it isn’t cheap. Is there anyone willing to spend the resources to retrieve Lapha and Garamm.
Sentenced to Death! (Eventually)
“Justice is swift in the future” -Doc Brown (BttF2)
(Not actually the future)
Doesn’t mean justice is correct
Justice is always correct. Otherwise, by definition, it’s not justice – it’s unjust.
The legal system and the judiciary can be wrong and create unjust rulings, situations, etc.
But I’m just being pedantic for the sake of it. I know what you meant.
Dabbler is pretty much like the Green Lantern, inasmuch as who’s going to tell her ‘no’ if she claims this is how it’s handled in the rest of the galaxy.
One of the magic items Thunt (I know I’m deadnaming them, but I can’t remember their live name) came up with in Goblins was a staff you could put multiple rings on, and use all their powers. Drawback was you had to sever one of your own fingers and attach it to the staff. Yeah, it was a necromantic device, but still pretty powerful.
Ellipsis, or Elli
Thank you.
I think that was an alternate Forgath that had that staff, which was sort of like a very long finger formed from one of their own fingers which was severed or something, in the Maze of Many.
Is that what those silly looking pubic tattoos are for? A control panel?
Somehow it seems to me that a control port would have been better placed at the navel.
Based on Lapha’s “What is that?” upon seeing the mark, I’d say Dabbler put it on the body before they put Lapha back into it, rather than it being a general thing that Aetholiths have. As for location, that’s where one typically sees magical womb tattoos/marks of lust/whatever in *ahem* certain media, and Dabbler is a succubus. She probably modified a naughty/fun spell she was already familiar with (the thing’s even got the heart/butt symbol in the middle) to function as a bodyswap-lock.
… actually, looking closely at the design, I suspect it may have originally been a contraception spell. It’s a stylized depiction of a womb (as is typical for such), and the ring that was excised looks to connect the womb to the fallopian tubes, such that while it’s removed they are no longer connected. Or I may just be reading way too much into things…
Lapha doen’t strike me as one of the most studious of Aetholiths. It could easily be a feature of the body that she isn’t aware of. Just as most people who use a computer will never write a program, Lapha may not have that much awareness of her bodies capabilities. Dabbler on the other hand, has probably studied up and knows every hack that can be applied to an Aetholith body. Aetholiths don’t reproduce in the usual biological sense so she probably doesn’t even have a womb as such. Yanking down someone’s pants to apply a spell is a Dabbler sot of thing to do, so there is that.
She may not have known what it was for, but it seems ridiculous to think she could have something like that on each of her bodies throughout all (or at least most) of her life and suddenly be surprised to see it when Dabbler yoinked her pants down. As for the spell, I wasn’t saying Dabbler was intending to put a contraception spell on Lapha, but rather that she modified such a spell she already knew to have it bodyswap-lock her. Sorta like how she modified a beautification/makeup spell into a cleaning spell (first used on Maxima, then later on Cooter to hilarious effect).
If you’re going to draw a mystical sigil on somebody, it’s probably easiest to draw it while they’re just… some body.
Then activate it once the body is occupied.
My bunches of hunches…
Dabbler revealed symbols already present but hidden, and Lady Lapha-lot had never seen them.
The one-body-problem technique isn’t well-known, or LLL would have surely learned of it in the merc biz.
Dabs quickly researched Aeth-Tech gadgetless confinement once Syd was free, and having a problem to tackle sped up her recovery. Getting immersed in an interesting challenge usually helps me get through a hangov-… uh, I mean malaise.
(I hope we get to see Syd’s cute friend from Grakz Shakz at the Frakz again.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-687-a-friendly-tongue/)
First thought- was Dabble ALWAYS three-fingered? Hang on gotta go check the archies.
Second though- that’s an…INTERESTING place for a tattoo/magical-sigil…
Ellipsis or Elli
Considering the amount of forces they may have to contend with doing what they did is fair.
“The idea of heroically killing the evil what’s it only for him to respawn 5 minutes later and you run into the next guy to heroically kill the evil whosamajig as you’re walking back to town from the dungeon of where ever.”
Give Elder Scrolls Online a try.
The overworld actually changes based on what you do/what happens in the story.
When you capture the ogres camp for the local army, it actually turns into a camp where friendly NPC and vendors runing around. And no repsawning ogres anywhere.
Enemies do still respawn in the open dungeons. But in those you fight your way through and leave the other end, via the convenient one-way “return to entrance” door.
glad to see that their are permanent solutions for Aetholiths who go criminal.
Aetholiths on low tech planets are literally demons (think 1998 Fallen movie) if they decide to rampage.
*Yawn*
Just send her to jail already. Haven’t we drawn this out long enough?
Well she’s essentially been imprisoned for life. And given an eventual death sentence in the form of a limited lifespan that her species normally wouldn’t have.
I loved how Justicar tore up White Plume Mountain
“RUUUNNN!!!”
Ooof, looking at the banner I’m thinking DaveB might want to redo those portraits. His art has leveled up tremendously since they were made.
I know, I know, finite time.
I mean, they & the “who’s who” bits are all taken from (mostly early) pages rather than specially done. Any character important enough to put up there has appeared in a *lot* of pages. (And probably vote-incentive pucs like the current Maxima he could mine as well)
Lapha’s groin is surprisingly. bulbous.
Yes, they tend to be
What, you thought they would be flat or concave? Or that Laph was a guy?
She has special ordered aspects to her “parts” so they could be useful to many different species, unlike Sydney having to take a potion to be able to have any real fun with Frix without serious damage to her.
It leads me to wonder about the biology of the Aetholith’s original creators. Were they made in their creator’s image? Or is that a body type that the Aetholiths arrived at by consensus. That bulbousness serves a purpose with us upright primates but might serve a completely different purpose in an entity with non biological reproduction. In the flashback to Lapha’s conception we see that there are apparently male and female analogues among the Aetholiths. Are the purchasable body options limited to those that would still have the body recognizable as an Aetholilth? I can see where there would be a market for bodies that took advantage of a particular individuals strengths or abilities.
I suspect the bulbousness of Lapha’s groin exists because it makes the drawing more interesting.
So, in terms of your WoW knowledge, you’re… Surprisingly correct. In the coming months, there will be account wide storage that everyone on your account could access, add to, draw from, without restrictions. It also allows for that ‘1-99’ power levelling, if 99 represented true endgame content and not just max level.
Hope you’ve been well, Dynotaku.
Personally hate the shared storage system
EQ, EQ2 and DCUO have a personal storage system and a shared system so you can swap between characters on your account who are on the same server (they all allow the usage of ‘Bank Mules’, characters whose sole purpose is to store excess crap that can’t fit on the main character(s))
Problem with DCUO is they keep adding shit that gets locked to a character and can’t be traded even to another character on the account, which takes up valuable storage space
Aahhhh! I Love Paul Kidd’s Justicar series (I have all 3 books plus the Dragon magazine with their status blocks). Cinders is my favorite character! BURN! (pyromaniacal giggling)
When it comes to the level up game, I like something like PSO2 where leveling just boosts your stats and your unlock your skill points for your classes by doing challenges found on the world maps. You don’t even need to perfect score them, just complete them. And the devs made it so you can reallocate skills whenever you want just by going to the Class Shop in any of the towns.
This way, I can just grind money to get cool drip for my characters and be as anime as I want without having to do game metas which plague most mmos.
Not sure why Lapha is looking up in panel 8, all she’d see would be a purple horizon/bulge.
Diablo 3 is probably more accurate to dabbler. I can level from 1 to 70 in about thirty minutes and safely running t10 rifts with just stuff I can slap together from my stash and the blacksmith
please use that last panel as inspiration for a vote incentive
Lets see, Lapha is guilty of assault, attempted kidnapping twice now, and a host of other laws. in any country if you break the laws of that country, even if it was legal in your own, you can be arrested and imprisoned for that crime. Why not the same thing existing between worlds? Plus now Lapha can serve time in jail without special concerns, so she’s just like any human in jail. It’s only fitting a convicted body-snatcher is prevented from being able to upgrade/renew her body, giving her a self-life of most creatures. Maybe in a few decades, Lapha, Dabs might let you upgrade…
Add on classified information forcefully extracted from a ARCSWAT Military Super Agent, and a copy still carried in memory. That security risk alone could lead to disappeared detention in a secure holding facility.
Yep, or at least a Dabbler-level ankle bracelet. Or maybe that lovely place they lifted from those Crimson Cape guys, once repairs are made. Either way, she’s never seeing the stars again, much less leaving the planet. She’s lucky Cora didn’t just “unwind” her on the spot! I’m sure Sydney would like to be her “visitor” from time to time as well… Syd does love to gloat… As it is that poor gal is going to have to deal with someone else’s memories and such. I’m sure not all of Sydney’s nights are going to have sexy dreams, more like nightmares…
Generally when a foreign citizen is arrested, they are allowed to contact their embassy. At least, in civilized countries
Guess she basically just handed her a ‘Life’ sentence. Prison may be optional.
Those bodies may only have a few decades of good use in them, so Lapha’s gone from a nearly eternal life to 30-40 Earth years… Yeah, this MIGHT teach her the lesson she’s not gotten until now: “DON’T mess with human supers!”
Besides, no one, not even Dabbler, has been able to figure out how humans become supers, so I doubt a DNA sample would tell anyone anything. Deus has an idea, but hasn’t gone into fine detail as yet, and I doubt he’s willing to share data.
I would still say this sentence is a little harsh attest because in essence its a death sentence so maybe if their was an actually time limit till its removed where she has to essentially stay on earth. what pops into my mind is how she ended up in that body. to the wider universe her races “bodies” are seen as disposable so releasing one that you made unable body hop into that situation lethal.
“Besides, no one, not even Dabbler, has been able to figure out how humans become supers, so I doubt a DNA sample would tell anyone anything. Deus has an idea, but hasn’t gone into fine detail as yet, and I doubt he’s willing to share data.”
Does does probably know, since he’s hinted that he’s already CREATED supers. And he explained just a little bit of it to Dabbler, Maxima, and Sydney in Galytn (although only Dabbler actually grasped what he was saying).
In any case, I’m very sure that out there there is at least SOMEONE who would be able to use the information of a super’s DNA to unlock the secret of how it works. The universe is vast with people who have the same or greater resources as Deus, and maybe even the same level of intelligence (definitely as smart as Dabbler or smarter).
Whoever intitially hired Lapha’s group to kidnap Maxima for example. Mercenaries tend to work for other people when doing missions.
I meant ‘Deus does probably know’ not ‘Does does probably know’
Sorry for the mistake. I’m not Deus so I am still occasionally rarely fallible. All praise Deus, amen.
I thought she knocked on the door, thinking she was magically locking her in the room. Only figured out it was supposed to be something like a ring by the corner comment.
Are Aetholiths immortal or just very long lived? Lapha’s reaction implies that she never expected to ever die.
The Glyph was probably always there but not visible until activated, and Lapha never took the time to read the owner’s manual.
Aetholiths remind me of the AIs in the Webcomic Questionable Content. There was one time when one of the AI got a new robotic body and was going through the manual, checking out all the features. So the organic body Lapha has is akin to the robotic bodies of the AI in QC, only not as durable.
Lapha’s reaction only implies she expected she will live longer than her body. Considering she already outlived one body just as far as we know, makes sense.
“Are Aetholiths immortal or just very long lived? Lapha’s reaction implies that she never expected to ever die.”
More likely they’re ‘biologically immortal’ (despite not being biological beings). In that they don’t die from old age since they can jump to a new body, and it’s less likely for them to die from unnatural means than a biological organism since they can again transfer to somewhere else, like a computer or another person. So… long lived by unnatural means, and immortal by old age means.
Also she did clearly expect to die in the past, because when she jumped off Sydney and onto the concrete floor, she seemed to just accept dying because life has sucked for her in general until that point, and in her natural form, she doesnt have a bunch of hormones pumping her full of fear about it above whatever is natural for her species.
“Are Aetholiths immortal or just very long lived? Lapha’s reaction implies that she never expected to ever die.”
More likely they’re ‘biologically immortal’ (despite not being biological beings). In that they don’t die from old age since they can jump to a new body, and it’s less likely for them to die from unnatural means than a biological organism since they can again transfer to somewhere else, like a computer or another person. So… long lived by unnatural means, and immortal by old age means.
Also she did clearly expect to die in the past, because when she jumped off Sydney and onto the concrete floor, she seemed to just accept dying because life has sucked for her in general until that point, and in her natural form, she doesnt have a bunch of hormones pumping her full of fear about it above whatever is natural for her species.
“The Glyph was probably always there but not visible until activated, and Lapha never took the time to read the owner’s manual.”
I’m pretty sure the glyph was put on there by Dabbler and was not ‘always’ there. And Dabbler just needed the flame on the body in order to lock it and activate the glyph/sigil.
Dabbler had me going in the first half… I ain’t gonna lie.
I’d just like to point out the sheer strength of those spaghetti straps Dabbler is wearing…… I guess you’d need something tough as hell (literally) to keep a succubus’s clothes ON….
TSR and WoTC have always had a very uneven and generally poor way of representing high-level warriors in combat. Most of their authors seem to think that it should be maybe at the level of Conan or something. Even Drizzt Do’Urden, if you do his Stats and look at what he can do, is written as far more dangerous than he actually is by the math.
Conan is like level 6-10 in D&D. Nothing he fights needs a higher level than that.
I concur that the Justicar novels were one of the first places you ever saw a COMPETENT high level D&D melee machine going to it. The writers seem to want to keep mundane the mundane at level 15+, and at that level, it’s not. It’s not ‘normal’ at all.
There’s an article out there that did the math and human limits in our world are basically all possible at level 6, and thus E6 games, where nobody gets above that, started to proliferate.
That means that past 6th level, you’re into movie physics territory, and superhuman.
At 10+, you’re just getting into super, period.
Just as an example…
A 10th level fighter, with weapon spec and stuff, can fast draw a pistol and put a shot in each of your eyeballs at 100 yards more easily than a proficient level 3 gunman can at 20 yards with decent aim.
Combat is superhuman at high levels, and it includes the melee types. Authors just forget that all the time.
DnD in general has an issue representing high level play and people have a dificult time understanding it
for example i have seen a lot of people who insist that HP is not “meat” but things like luck and skill and near misses and whatever and while that works at low levels where the biggest challenges are things like goblins and orcs it really doesnt work at high levels where you start going up against ancient dragons and the avatars of gods
people like to act like high level DnD play must remain “grounded” where things make sence and everyone survives by their grit and skill but really, once you reach level 10 you are a monstruos killing machine that can survive shit that would obliterate 99% of the population of the planet and it only goes up from there
The fact Hit Points are not ‘meat’ is canon as far back as the AD&D DMG in the 70’s. “Having suffered 50 or 60 points of damage, our lordly 10th level fighter will be covered in nicks, cuts, scrapes, and bruises…” and that’s after taking blows that would amount to chopping a dozen people in two.
Luck and other powers is EXACTLY what hit points are supposed to represent. Only like the last 5-10 is really ‘meat’. The rest is as magical and supernatural as a cast spell. When you tank a fireball for 35 points that can blow apart a house and melt steel, the only explanation is that hit points are magic, too. Incredibly basic, fundamental magic, but magic nonetheless.
When you fall from a mile in the sky, hit for 20d6 damage, and walk away, you’re telling me hit points aren’t magical?
I will relate a Real Life example for you. I have been hit by motor vehicles 3 times hard enough that the vehicles were undrivable after the wreck, and walked away from the first 2 wrecks with minor cuts and bruises, and the third one was a wreck that should have turned me into Chunky Salsa as the vehicle was going an estimated 60 MPH, but I was out of the hospital in 13 days. Took me most of a year of therapy and Other Stuff to get back to roughly where I was at the time of the wreck, but given that 99+% of human beings would have been “unalive” I count that as pretty good. Now I was dealing with a GM who wanted to make me a character in her Shadowrun game, and using actual game physics I would have had to been a dragon to have enough Body to survive what my Almost-Human Real Life Body walked away from twice and even a dragon would have had a hard time surviving that last wreck. Her workaround was to have me cursed with immortality by an angry magic-user who was pissed that I refused her offer of marriage as a 12YO in a country where I didn’t speak the language. Which was a Thing That Happened when I was 12 (refusing the offer of marriage, I have no idea if she was a magic-user). So yes, there are people who can do that, just not very many, and not very often.
Ahhhhh, MMOs… I play LOTRO in between games that come out that are better… I intended for my champion to be my main, who can mine and chop every resource my other characters need to thrive in their crafting. But then I discovered a cooking money printing glitch, and farmed and cooked myself literally to level 80 from nothing XD then bought enough metals to get my metalsmith to the level I could make tolerable gear for them to start the fun parts of Rohan where you first get warhorse combat. Which is wildly less damaging than foot combat if you swing like my guardian.
What I love about LOTRO is that if you avoid end game areas you barely notice people are playing with you most of the time. You can turn off world chat. You can COOK PIES to the level cap, legendary fellow there made a few articles in online newspapers XD
… Eh, but now they’re pretty much extra canon in what they’re doing. Umbar is like epilogues and annex information, not even covered for the most part in the books. I wish they’d just overhaul the crafting system so that you can craft at least basic level things without being that level with that crafter or something else ridiculous. At tier 8 or so it stops being possible to craft for your main at all. And I am NOT leveling eight different toons for the “experience.”
Yeah if you are on the edge of MMOs being interesting, would recommend. Is technically free, pay $20 for mounting skill and you unlock a bigger wallet and fast travel most places permanently. No subscription necessary. VIP is nice and only $14 a month with deals for longer subscriptions like most other things.
But if you hate people or grinds or learning curves STAY AWAY for the love of all holy
Note that Dabbler didn’t say it’s permanent. It’s probably only for as long as Dabbler wears the ring, which probably also doubles as a GPS for the spell. So she won’t be able to sneak up on them anymore, either.
I suspect it’s not ‘wears the ring’ but ‘has the ring tucked away somewhere safe’. It seems likely Dabbler could unbind the ring in such a way as to free Lapha… should she ever be persuaded to do so.
Time off for good behavure? Maybe, I think it would depend on what info she gives up and what she could do that would be helpful in the alien issues that I’m sure are going to come up in the future. I’m sure with Lapha’s time as a mercenary and bounty hunter might come in handy sometimes since I’m sure Cora isn’t going to be around that much to help. Dabbler can’t be there all the time for every incident. Deus is the only one on Earth that MIGHT the have defensive assets to help protect the planet.
I don’t want to be ‘that person’ but this was really annoying me so I’ll just say it. Even though I’m sure some people’s first language isnt English, but my mother would never forgive me if I did not.
Behavior, not behavure.
Okay now on to actually useful responses. :)
I totlaly agree that Lapha’s time as a mercenary might become handy. Not to mention her knowledge of people as contacts. Maybe we’ll have a sort of ‘Detla’ thing happening as a work release program for Lapha and Garamm now that Lapha is neutered from being able to bodynap people. I really enjoy Garamm.
But I shouldn’t have to die! I live in a sci-fi universe!! It’s sooo unfair!
#3,472,578,926thworldproblems