Grrl Power #570 – The bamboomanity!
A lot of you guessed about work arounds to the death field problem, and if you didn’t come up with a solution as simple as this, it was probably because you wouldn’t have thought it could be defeated this easily.
It is pretty bone headed, but in The Council’s defense, Sciona didn’t think of it, and this is the final deterrent after running the rest of the Vault’s gauntlet. First and foremost, security through obscurity, then the physical challenge of accessing the vault, then breaching the vault, then defeating the guardian, then surviving the lobby defenses, and finally breaching each sub vault, all while under a time limit since normally the alarms would be going off.
Really though, they should have put more time into… I don’t know what it’s called, but opposition research? You Red Team it, so the second thing you do after designing any kind of defense or security is figure out how to beat it. Then you go back and fix all the ways you figured out how to beat your first version. The problem with security through obscurity though, is you want as few people knowing about the defenses as possible, so you wind up getting the people who designed the defenses trying to break them instead of putting fresh eyes on it. Still, if nothing else, the pillars should all be closed and unlabeled, so a thief would have to break into each one separately and blindly.
Of course in the real world, there’s always considerations of budget and practicality. Yes, a vault in the core of the Earth would be difficult to access. It also might be cost prohibitive.
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Called it. I used a tree branch…
Good job.
So much for my debunking. :-D
Indeed, it would appear that the filed only prevents non-living matter from entering, not exiting.
The whole “make a hole through a living thing to bypass the field” trick Sciona went with would allow bamboo/willow branches to be turned into hoops through which you could reach though.
Well obviously non-living things have to be able to exit. As Sciona said, the Epimorph is “too useful to be destroyed”, implying the Council could have destroyed it, but chose instead to put it in the Vault. In turn, implying not everything in the Vault is intended to just be locked away forever, never to be used. There had to be a possibility to retrieve them, that is still inconvenient enough that nobody in a legitimately visiting council quorum doesn’t get the temptation or realistic possibility of sneak out some other relic past the remainder of the council. Deus’ “solution” would probably not have been possible if the teleportation/portal wards hadn’t gone down already. Because how would he get such a large quantity of live, potted bamboo in there without killing them in the process of diving through the tunnel, fighting the guardian, and the traps inside the vault itself?
Well I assume the council has a way to shut down a specific field to retrieve an artifact
possibly the main seats of the council have artifacts which both act as the proof that they’re the main seats of the council and either act as the fields keys, or are pieces which assemble to form the key. (the latter being the more favorable one as it would require the council to agree at least semi-unanimously to use an artifact)
Exactly, just like they can gather together to shut down defences and open the vault instead of having to Exactly someone and blow up all their defences to get in
I think it’s simpler than that–many of the items of the vault can’t be destroyed (well, without a lot more research); if the containment fields could destroy them, by definition they wouldn’t be indestructible.
Close. She said it was “too useful to not use.” Implying that whatever it does is so very handy that the temptation to take 99 lives to get that effect would start to seem like a small price to pay. Of course, this is an opinion on the relative value of a murder device as presented by a multi- and probably mass murderer. So take it for what it is worth given that context. To Sciona, getting rid of an ingrown toenail might be useful enough to murder 99 people to achieve.
Don’t believe making a ‘hoop’ (or a wreath) would work: it would go around the solid and fill in the hole, that’s why Sci-fright put a hole through the solid
And what is to stop the field going around Worm-food and filling in the hole?
Bunnies‽
Sci-fright’s blood
Remember, Sci-fright didn’t put a hole through Wormy and then reach in, she made the hole as she reached in
The fact that it didn’t. And the plot.
The author has a requirement to have the things he tells us be valid. If he says that a force field kills anything that passes through it, and then demonstrates that, he is following the rules he laid down for himself and the readers. If he then allows a solid object to block the killer force field, that is also fine, because he hasn’t violated the rules he has laid out for himself and the readers.
If he, however, says that a force field will kill anything living that passes through it and cannot be passed through by things which are not living, and then later a non-living object passes easily and without remark by people who knew these fucking rules, then the author is fucking losing his fucking mind and needs to take a remedial fucking course in fucking storytelling, because a fucking 5 year old would stop a fairly tale at about this fucking point and ask “Didn’t you fucking say that non-living matter can’t fucking pass through the fucking death field?” Because kids are smart like that, unlike some other I could point out.
Please bear in mind the following:
1) The character’s dialogue, in the comic, is ALWAYS from the character’s point of view and is flavoured by their agenda. Deus was phrasing his statement in such a way as to not make anybody present guess what his solution is. Thus allowing him the smug satisfaction of his reveal.
No, he does not. Not in the context, as here, where we have been told the “rules” via character dialogue.
You need to remember that characters may lie, or be mistaken, or simply not choose their words well. Deus is not a sphinx, spending decades crafting perfectly phrased riddles. This was banter, where he was taunting an enemy, and trying to trick her into revealing a (presumably) elaborate solution (see the ones Wyrmil suggested, for examples), precisely so that he could undercut her with the simple one he had.
2) The author was kind enough to elaborate, in his blog on the previous page, to help us, the readers, make the distinction:
3) Please note that although I called it wrong, other readers correctly divined the author’s intent and called the plant solution. So this was soluble in advance. Like you I fell for Deus’s ploy and felt miffed as a result. But it is far more gracious to concede, and congratulate those who were smart enough to figure out the correct solution. Rather than to have a hissy fit and become offensive!
4) Even though Deus did phrase his statement, in such a way as to veil his solution, he was actually telling the truth.
It didn’t. Living plant passed through it. This process killed it. But it is then on the other side, in the middle of the field (“The field is a pipe, not a solid volume of energy”). Then refer to the highlighted bit above, for how the artefact comes out.
While this is true, there are limits which will be followed by any competent writer. If the readers are presented with a puzzle, and the character who solves the puzzle does not follow the rules of the puzzle, that is lousy writing and no amount of “The character isan’t a Sphinx” makes it good writing.
Sciona overcame the puzzle in a way which was rationally consistent with the rules: Use living matter to block the field, then extract the artifact.
Deus did not: Use living matter to knock an object which cannot pass through the field….through the field.
There is a vast difference here that any intelligent reader, nay any clever 5 year old, can quickly and easily grasp. That is, if they are not too busy sucking up to the author to allow a logical chain of thought to pass through their minds.
I used a kitten.
You monster…
*hugs kitties*
Don’t worry kitties, I will keep you safe!
Never hurt kittens; the universe itself will seek vengence on you, and harming kittens is the only thing that’s know to get Death himself upset.
just use a kitten from the litter of Schroedinger’s cat, they’re neither dead nor alive, and there’s as many or none of them in the box as you like
Necromunger
.
.
.
.
,
,
kitties!
Fell in love with those the first second I saw them the first time I saw that movie.
If he’s using any of the cats from here, he will pay the dues…
What is WRONG with you?!
Turtles have much better surface area efficiency, and are easier to physically position.
Ooo, great minds think alike. Groot!
So simple and effective. No wonder he’s such a successful villain
He bamboozled them!
Hiyoooooh!
Nicely done.
You get as many points as you choose for that.
God damnit, I spent an hour last night trying to think of a title for this page, and Bamboomanity was the best I could come up with. I even googled “bamboo idioms” Only came up with “Babmoo Ceilings” which is like a glass ceiling but for Asians. (Which sounds racist but an Asian guy came up with it so, that makes it fine?)
Gary Larson once commented on struggling to come up with a title for one of his porcupine Farside comics. He finally decided on ‘Punk Porcupines’. After it went to press, he showed it to a friend. He replied “Oh. Punkupines.” https://i.imgur.com/q1y9nSy.jpg
You should have titled it, “Bring Deus another shrubbery.” :3
Bamboomeranged.
It’s not too late to go back and change it…just sayin’….
It is now, though.
At least Wyrmil seems to regenerate by himself. Dick move, Sciona, but Machiavellian.
Makes me wonder why Wyrmil needs the Regenerator if he can do it himself. Must be something incredibly special (and evil) about that thing.
Or, he’s simply strong enough to last long enough to curse Sci-fright
There is a long-standing tradition of a hero/villain being allowed last words, even if technically dead. That is the kind of thing that Dave would run with, going by previous choices he has made.
Or Wyrmil is indeed not dead.
Yeah, generally speaking, the trope is that someone who is dying can speak a 10 minute silioquy even as they draw their last living breath…That last breath exhhibits the most lung power they’d ever exercised during life.
Even a normal human like Cooter got to say ‘fuggin monsters’ before he went boom.
i would’ve loved if Cooter had spoonerized it and ended up saying ‘muggin’ fonsters’
Why Wyrmil may want the regenerator even if already able to regenerate:
1) To bypass limits on his regeneration. Whether he has an age limit, or a chronic pain problem from scar tissue he can’t heal, or whether his powers are fading… for whatever reason
[apologies, accidentally clicked submit early]
*for whatever reason, the dude needs a power-up. Maybe he gets immortality or something this way.
2) Other significance of the item. Maybe it was used to make him, and he can use it to make more beings like him. Maybe it grants him rulership over others of his kind. Maybe it has other powers, e.g. allowing him to regenerate wounds of others.
Or maybe he doesn’t regenerate without it, but simply doesn’t for, and goes on living in a horribly maimed body until he gets his hands on magical healing.
*simply doesn’t die
3) Improves existing regeneration powers. So for Wyrmil that would bump it up to ‘regenerate all damage instantly’ (i.e.) any attack that does not kill him outright will be healed. Or being able to regenerate back from being dead. And/or, similar to one of your points, granting a regeneration aura to allow anyone nearby to recover (best if able to exclude enemies, needless to say).
4) Grants powers totally unrelated to regeneration, but the name is a clue that it can only be used by someone with regeneration.
The ‘tor’ part of the name (small mountain) could provide the other clue that it grants powers over earth and stone. Being able to shape stone to create a cave or dungeon, control earth to travel on a rolling hill, or transform any mineral into another mineral. Bored with your car? See if its suspension is boosted enough to still move, when transformed into a golden car.
5) Combinations of the above.
If someone wanted to prank me by turning my car into gold, I may let them. Even if it was only the steel parts, I would still have about a ton of gold, or roughly $60 million (minus the cost of transportation to the refinery and processing for melt-down into ingots.)
The current Midas commercial has the king (not Elvis) touch the new shock absorber on the car. My first thought was ‘that is going to collapse the moment they let the car down from the lift.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IRgFcuInDk
Addendum: I just realized gold is about double the density of steel. So my one ton of car would turn into two tons of gold.
it would remain the same density, so may become a lower grade of gold.it would also be softer, and unable to hold as much weight, so would buckle/bend
So, according to your theory, alchemical transmutation of matter observes conservation of mass regarding protons and neutrons. it just rearranges them into new nuclei instead of a one-for-one swap of atoms of one element for another. Interesting.
Well, yeah. That’s how it works.
You can literally turn iron into gold, in reality. It’s just more expensive to do right now than the gold would be worth.
It’s why fabricators aren’t so farfetched- we’re working on the 3D printing, it’s only a matter of time until we figure out the alchemy.
*takes a puff*
I can handle that.
6) Wants to deny powers like his to others. Though this is probably not the only artifact he’d have to get or destroy.
Mmm…
7) Anti-regeneration aura. Basically an area which damages any living thing within it. Perhaps in such a way that it cannot be healed.
Potentially rather nasty for its user, who is always within it (artefacts very often have nasty side effects, and evil ones even more so, so there is no guarantee that there will be an exemption for the wielder).
Mind you if the user’s own regeneration can offset that effect, then we can see why a regenerating villain, with no regard for the lives of others,* would put it on the top of his evil toy wish list.
* See how blasé he was about the risk to others by suggesting blowing up the vault door.
The what now? Wyrmil wants (wanted? It seems to be uncertain as to his potential past-tense status), according to Deus, the Regenator. Assuming that wasn’t just an author typo, of course.
He has an rolling shelf of potted bamboo prepared?
…to the archives.
He had a shopping cart prepared earlier… and this surprises you?
Even so, I’ll bet Dues’ Human Resources Manager is relieved that he won’t have to hire new people to replace those that might have been “fired” today. With the size of Dues’ shopping list, that would have taken quite a while…
The archives will not help, as we have not seen the other side of the portal, which is where he is pulling it from.
He may have main battle tanks, white elephants and a troop of dancing girls all ready, for one contingency or another.
Or, a troupe of dancing battle tanks, operated by elephants :D
Roll in the can can cannons!
The comments section today made my life complete.
You win,
Somewhere that is a thing, like humanoid alien elephants with battle mechs.
Might I recommend Schlock Mercenary, then? For a while a prominent character was an uplifted elephant with power armor.
I do want to see that preparation room.
See, now I’m imagining a secretary on the other side of the portal whom he’s communicating with via a series of pre-determined hand gestures. “That’s the peace sign, he wants the shopping cart….Thumbs up, he wants the bamboo….Middle finger, he wants the RPG….”
These are all said aloud because she’s barking orders to a bunch of minions.
Woof woof!
*wags tail enthusiastically*
Grrr! GRRRR! GRRRROOOOWL!
(Effing YouTube copy button …. didn’t copy, so still had my previous link)
Cleaned out Ikea.
and now I’m imagining a Transformer robot constructed out of Ikea furniture
We have no idea what to name him/her/it, but this member of our crew can be pretty much anything… you just gotta use that weird wrench/screwdriver/allen key thing.
He must have a decepticon hiding near his workstation. There is always one part missing or mislabeled, thanks to him!
He might have teleported there from an Ikea. You don’t know.
Oh, I think I can just make out a wardrobe door there. Plus a lion and some nasty looking woman, with a broomstick.
I love the fact that he so casually points out how limited and stupid she really is. “You obviously don’t see the value in trust or loyalty.” Meanwhile, he’s a completely normal, non-superpowered mortal male… surrounded by attractive females (as well as males, though I don’t believe he’s bisexual) of incredible power and ability, and all of them are clearly VERY loyal to him. Because they know he’s loyal to them. If Sciona tried violence on him, they’d rip her apart. Again.
Ike assumption that Deus is “a non-super-powered mortal male” is at this time unproven.
For all we know he is an immortal being of vast power who is playing the long game.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2080
does show that Deus seems to have a long term goal.
To own the universe.
Man, I miss her.
*eyes mist up*
I actually have a similar response to Deus whenever I see stuff like that, except it’s more a “I should be exploring all this, why are we still stuck on earth? If it wasn’t for the dark ages, we could have an active frontier half of the Orion Spur of the Milky Way by now!!!”
“I don’t believe he’s bisexual”
I’m pretty sure Deus is smug-sexual. Maybe a bit Maxima-sexual too, lol.
Hypothetically speaking, would that make him attracted to smug people or to people who most allow him himself to be smug? Either one could include the attraction to Maxima, of course.
I think he’s greed-sexual.
Maxima? Yes, but she’s powerful. Same for (lesser degree) Heavenly Sword and his other troops.
The objects he’s stealing? They’re all of power. So are the ‘not replicas’ he has on display in various places.
The nation he just took over.
Social constructs of power are also his (capitalism, etc).
Information of power- like about Max’s meteorite.
Anyone or anything of power is something he wants, and gets without much difficulty.
The value in trust and loyalty.. to Deus. Pretty sure he would still throw one of his subordinates under the proverbial bus, but he at least weighs the long term benefits and drawbacks first.
Yeah, that’s my take on it, too. Trust and loyalty *are* very valuable, and Deus isn’t going to squander those. Because it’s really a currency he’s only going to be able to spend *once*, and he’s not going to do that unless the immediate gain outweighs all the future potential — and what kind of immediate gain would outweigh even the kind of potential standing in the room with him right now? Nothing in the Reliquary, I bet.
Actually, I have a feeling Deus does value trust and loyalty very highly. Yes, he does have some very long term goaols and those goals may require him to sacrifice one of his pieces to acquire, but I think that if it came to it, the piece in question would know ahead of time what Deus is expecting of them and he would expend them only if they agreed. That’s how I would do it anyways. Now whether or not they had been “brainwashed” or having a weakness exploited against them is another matter. In that regards you have to think beyond the obvious.
Deus might agree to save your dying child, which he may or may not have put into that condition without you knowing, or make sure your family is taken care of financially for the rest of their life for your sacrifice. There’s many ways he could do it without really having to dirty his hands to. Deus may be smug, but I can never call him arrogant or stupid. Afterall, the definition of being arrogant is “having or revealing an exagerrated sense of one’s own importance or ability.”
Villains who don’t value trust and loyalty are almost always and entirely arrogant.
Well said.
Even though we do not see you often, may I say what a lovely smile you have.
Thanks! :-)
so the way to counter the bamboo trick is to make it so that the field don’t allow light through?
you wouldn’t know what’s inside or where to hit it. even if you did manage to hit it, you wouldn’t know where it’s going and whether this particular object is safe to hold.
It seems stuff instantly dies on touching the field (no propagation outside of the field) and the now dead matter withers and desintegrates (or burns) slowly inside. It seems the desintegration part is too slow to be effectiv. Interesting is the immunity of the items or it only works when something propagetes from the out to the inside.
Missing feature of the vault design is a solid tube or bars inside of the field. No chance to drill or saw if the tool can´t reach it. A deflection against energy based attacks should also be present.
I have a feeling the light hook will be able to reach in and grab stuff.
“Sploosh!” – Heavenly Sword
Sooo regenerator, 99 kills for the ephimorph and wyrmil.. should make a nice and quick 99 kill combo with 1 guy standing back up. Depending on how killing is defined and how big Wyrmil his trust in Sconia is now.
Well if it is like the definition that has allowed the potted plant to be used, then probably 99 ants will do the trick.
Unless it requires 99 deaths because of something ephemeral, like 99 human souls, which wouldn’t be provided from killing 99 ants.
Why not XP farm by letting someone cough on you?
Just a flesh wound
Speaking of, looks like Sci-fright still has a little bit of troll in her from the Wars Factory fight
It would take several weeks for the body to replace transfused blood with new blood, so that makes sense.
Mind you it would also make sense for her to take a fresh infusion just before such a risky mission as this. And even more so if using Wyrmil was her plan all along (although it may have only been an improvised demonstration of power).
I’ve been trying to say it for a while now, but can’t say it right, so I’ll say it wrong:
Sciona’s stitches.
The wound should have healed by now- but since it hasn’t, I think that her shoving her hand through the field didn’t hurt at all- she is using blood magic to keep the body ‘attached’ (not really attached) so it can’t feel pain because the nerves aren’t connected.
I have never been bothered by the facial scars because they are where head and body of two completely different species are attached. And, if we assume that the operation was done hastily, after her partial-beheading, there may not have been the luxury of finding a body that was naturally compatible.
So those two parts may constantly be rejecting one another. With only the power of Sciona’s blood magic stopping that from killing her. So the regenerative power that troll blood gives her, would (in the vicinity of that wound) only offset the necrosis caused by rejection.
Meanwhile anytime that it managed to actually heal the wounds enough to close up, that process will cause it to close up with the foreign flesh. Thereby making the two respective immune systems go into overdrive and start killing off the invading organisms big time. Starting the cycle afresh.
Wouldn’t that blade be over-kill (please, shut-up about “there’s no such thing as ‘over-kill'”) for someone like Heaving who can make a blade around a stick?
Or maybe she just likes blades in general and she will put that on the wall in her toilet
The blade still moves different to a stick due to form and weight balance. To a fighter of Heavenly’s skill that does make a difference.
… Nah, gonna stick with the ‘she just likes blades in general’ angle
Yes, that too of course.
Sword = phallic symbol, yeah it figures
She’s not an insecure man-child though
Weren’t you excited when you got your first magical sword?
Well yes, briefly. Unfortunately my first magic sword was a singing sword that only knew the latter verses of “brave Sir Robin”. My own fault, I should have known better to by a no name brand from the clearance counter. :-)
In my first dungeon, the first magic sword that I gave out was called ‘Ribsplitter’ and only worked at its most effective if told bad jokes… preferably different ones each time…
^_^
The favourite one I created (and also the player’s favourite) was a +1 to hit/+3 damage longsword. Which would always play loud battle music, in a fight, like the ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ or the ‘1812 overture’.
Outside of battle it would speak to its owner (but only under circumstances where others could not overhear), and provided a wealth of knowledge that you might expect a top-quality steward or castellated to have. Such as heraldic knowledge, royal etiquette and so on. All years out of date mind, but such things rarely change, and it was intelligent, so could refresh its knowledge, for all the years it was out of play.
Made a dagger in Oblivion, with a silence spell on. Called it “Shut up”. Was useful in backstabbings.
The players’ favorite thing in our campaign wasn’t a sword but a wand. A low-level Thief bought an ornate wand and took it to a Magic User to enchant so he would have a magical item in case his party ran into something too big to fight that demanded a magic item from every member of the party. He asked it to have a Magic Mouth spell on it, to say “Bang!” as loudly as possible. He carried it for several years of game time without using it. When he finally did, in what he thought would be a last gesture of defiance against a charging horde of nomads, he found that he had drastically overpaid for the spell, and the Magic User was much higher-level than he had realized, who gave him his money’s worth. Bang. At 175 decibels…
*Slow clap*
Wow.
That’s enough to burst eardrums, certainly stun, and almost enough to outright kill.
(185-200 dB being the generally accepted lethal volume.)
I am certainly going to have to incorporate that into my next campiagn.
Is it plageriams if I tell him beforehand. lol
My first magic sword was one I made- Jacob’s Sword. You know those Jacob’s ladders with the lightning bolt that travels up between two metal rods?
Well the sword was a dual-bladed rapier with the lightning bolt between its blades. No one bled to death from it but lots of people got electro-stabbed.
Awesome concept and mental visuals!
I got a magic sword called “killing stroke”. Found out the hard way that it only worked once. fight a battle and it acted pretty much like any trivial +X sword, but when you finally made what should be a killing stroke, it turned to dust. leaving you empty handed while facing a very pissed off enemy. I died.
That’s almost as bad as making a magic-user carry around a stinking, slowly rotting fish, just because some wise@$$ decided to enchant it with Summon Bigger Fish, just for the halibut.
At least it wasn’t a red herring
I can’t believe the scale of what I am herring. How cod he make the poor mage do that?
he was probably paid by someone else, to the tuna a lotta money
got a +3 “Talkative” bastard sword as a lvl1 Ranger, was super happy until I realized it was not a “talking” one…
it was talking round the clock about anything useless, last meal, weather, our backpack/money purse content, plus, as it had group telepathy 15″ radius, what we or anyone around was thinking, asking questions about it as a 5-year-old little girl would do…no bargaining, no hunting, no hiding possible
could not even toss it as it would cry very loud for one hour, and teleport in my backpack afterwards.
had to find someone who could cast remove curse with it shouting at it, it was very expensive!
but it was a good sword…
Whist I have a mental condition which means I do often forget names (or just have them swapped around for others), I doubt that is likely with yours, forgetmyname.
Heavenly is pretty good on offense and physical defense.. I got a shiny nickel on that sword imparting substantial defenses against magic. HS vs Dabbler, round two: Lets try this again..
Umm, didn’t she lose against Les though? When he blocked her thrust with his eyeball?
That was just a block. OK a damned good one, because it had her freaked out. But she was still in the fight otherwise, as that was only transient.
Well, it IS Prince Nuada’s sword.
There were this bunch of blacksmiths and craftsmen from Baltimore who recently made a replica of it using only mundane techniques, and even that turned out epic.
If it is Prince Nuada’s sword, does the user also need the crown to use it? We saw it floating in another containment unit on a previous page. https://www.dreadcentral.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/princenuadahellboy2sword.jpg
Check out forging it on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6LCDpHNdF8
I love how YouTube is becoming a legitimate content site now, in having strong made-for-YouTube communities like that. I just wish they would give users better control over fine-tuning subscriptions. That is the second channel that I hit the button for, recently, before checking out their range.
Their man at arms series is what I was after. And one other looks great. But the rest range from ‘mmm, might check out’, through ‘meh’ to ‘hell no!’. Net result I will be working my way through my inbox and unless the majority of it is the stuff I am interested in, I will be unsubscribing again straight away.
Which is a damned shame, as I don’t mind waiting a long while in between getting updates on the good items. But I have no intention of having to sift through regular doses of drivel, to get it. I gave up TV quite happily, and have no wish to emulate that lifestyle on YouTube.
They used to have a sort of “Shows” thing going on- I think that morphed into YouTube Red, though. What I wish is that they would change their “Recommendations” section to NOT SHOW CHANNELS I’M SUBSCRIBED TO. I already know what they’re putting out, I’m SUBSCRIBED to them! Show me interesting stuff that’s related, but not the same!
Very good point. Similar to one of mine, which is, ‘never show me things I have watched previously’. About the only exception is music videos, but as any I like I put into either my favourites or a playlist, I am quite happy not to have those in my recommendations either.
By the way, if anyone is unaware of it, YouTube does have an excellent option for music. Just search for “music”. Obviously you will get a bunch of individual songs and playlists based on things you have ‘liked’ or ‘favrourited’ before.
However the most impressive one is a personal playlist it creates, called ‘Mix – Music’. Solely comprised of music that you like.
Which means that I would like a sub-option, to my ‘never play things I have heard before’, namely ‘except music’. Given that it can already distinguish that, without me having to flag them separately (not that I would mind doing that, but the algorithms seem fit for purpose).
sword is more resistant to bullets, which was the start of her downfall last time she was in a fight. also whatever the sword does that got it locked up is way better then wooden sword with magic blades around it as well.
Redundancy never hurts, and it is always a good idea to give your swordswomen shiny things when you go out looting.
Shouldn’t this not work because the field doesn’t allow nonliving things pass through it? Sciona’s trick worked because she pulled it through Wyrmil, whose body created a gap in the field.
My guess is that the items inside are excluded from the rules, or the rule is only on entering and not about leaving.
The item being excluded sounds more right, as the (now dead) bamboo stick breaks upon hitting the field from the inside.
That’s how I see it.
It wouldn’t work, if they used a decent instant death field. As you imply as soon as the plant dies it should be stopped by the other aspect of the defense, by being nonliving. Clearly their contractor installed a substandard death field, and they did not do even basic testing.
Which is something that happens, even in important installations. But not ones that have been properly managed.
Why did they use an instant death field? Why not an instant disintegration field? I know that would risk destroying the artifacts but that would solve the potted plant problem.
Budget shortfall. They already burnt most of it on the outer defenses, so were cutting corners.
Plus you really do not want artefacts getting pissed off by being surrounded by something like that. This would only apply to ones that were not invulnerable, and which you did actually have a potential need to use. Otherwise you would simply have destroyed them by disintegration in the first place.
Trying to use an artefact that has a grudge against you is a sure way to a … ahem… sticky end.
Better idea, still use the death field, but have a bullet proof glass case or what ever they use for the president’s limo windows and have that in the death field as well. Also, screw budget. If these things are world ending then it is worth it.
Good idea.
I agree with you on the last. Practicalities do get in the way though. Especially at the end of what must have been a staggeringly high construction project. If the money has run out, it simply is not an option (assuming all the normal ways, like borrowing have been exhausted too).
Not wishing to change topics, but just to mention a real-world comparison. This is like the global warming problem. It does not matter if people like me say ‘we must pay whatever cost is necessary to retain the status quo’ (or later, ‘stop getting things getting even worse than they inevitably will’).
However if those being asked to foot the bill say ‘no’, then it is not happening. We have not seen the rest of the world stepping in and saying ‘OK we will pay America to do their part too’. No matter how many people may be concerned that this is creating a risk of the world ending.
Sunny was still able to get his fist through VIKI’s field.
I hope he bought her dinner first?
:D
But Isaac Asimov’s “I, Robot”.
Ahh, now I get the context. And, yea, similar issue. A force field even impenetrable to robots, that turns out to be penitrable, because one robot has been made tougher than others, for that purpose. Which you do not find out until after the event.
However it does still hold together consistently and within the scope of the setting. The designer would credibly have been able to do that. So you draw a good parallel.
The real issue is that the sword can pass through the field on the way out. It should just bounce of the wall after you smack it with the bamboo.
Yea. The solution that others have posed is that it is a one-way effect.
Ingsol specifically said many of the items in the vault were indestructible (well, without a lot more research); by definition, if the containment fields could destroy them, the wouldn’t be indestructible.
So they did fail to get the five year olds to test the defense. Damn that health and safety rule of not letting them near a death field!
Getting a regular engineer in to advise would have solved the problem, too. In fact, whoever on the Council who writes up the training schedule for magic / supernatural / weird stuff needs to add a Department of… they just need all of STEM, really. This is the 21st Century, after all.
Although it wasn’t when the vault was built.
Which is no excuse mind, as survival critical stuff needs constant review.
If non-living matter cannot pass through it, how do the artifacts?
Depends on which way the barrier works: is it one-way (non-living can not enter but it can exit) or is it two-way? From the looks of things, it’s one-way
The trouble is a ‘field’ implies an area, like a mine field. Dave’s blog did clarify that it did not cover the whole volume, to allow room for the artefact. But the descriptions still, even after re-reading, imply something like a thermos flask (substituting ‘death field’ for ‘vacuum’). Whereas it must actually just be a shell (or wall, to use another common way of describing force fields).
Otherwise (if the plant is instantly killed on contact with the outer layer) by the time it has passed slightly deeper into the field it is non-living, and thereby will be stopped.
Two pages ago, Dues said, “Only living matter can pass through it, and the field kills anything that touches it.” Evidently the “only living matter can pass through it” works only one-way, entering it from the outside, otherwise an artifact itself couldn’t pass through on the way out.
The problem with being so obscure you aren’t labeling the contents of your ultra-ultra-ultra secure vault is that if the real disasters happen someone may NEED to know what’s in there NOW, rather than waiting for Archives to pull up the files and the map.
Yeah, this whole situation is a product of a series of bad decisions. Some of those decision probably were made because the people involved are set in their ways because they’ve been around a long time.
Some because of ability mishmashes mean not everyone is on the ball for such issues; I bet you someone on the council has perfect memory, and so doesn’t really understand why you would write down a secret. Several others are also probably really good at it (vampires, mages), even if not ‘perfect.’
And some because the circle of people involved with these decisions was too small, which is an odd thing to say, but there’s a lot of bureaucracy involved in any large project, and this looks like it was several large projects mashed together, and that it evolved organically over years.
But yeah, a lot of egg in faces here.
I’d argue that the vault, on the whole, is fairly well designed. The only two outright flaws I’d say are the final line of defense and the lack of a second way of sounding the alarm. There are things that could have been done better sure, but the mindset of assuming any vault with a known location will eventually be breached by some obscure magical trick is not necessarily a wrong one.
This is Deus at his best. Simple, effective, and showing off he’s still better than you.
Well, darn, my guess was wrong. Heavenly is there just to pad the numbers, Yorp.
But if the field blocks or destroys nonliving material, how does the artifact get knocked out in this scenario? One-way field, perhaps? Wyrmil’s bandolier wasn’t blocked or destroyed… not sure what that means. Maybe the field is all hype.
Sure looks that way. We’ve seen nothing to suggest that living material can’t pass through and plenty to suggest that it can. All we really have is Deus’ word to the contrary.
Well my guess was not used either. Although Opal’s portals could do the job just as easily.
I agree with you and Guesticus that it must be one way.
The bandoleer was either an artistic oversight (most likely) or made of living material (less likely, but credible with access to alien technology or, for that matter, a blood magic artificer).
Wyrmil begs to differ. Possibly posthumously.
But, based on today’s comic, the tunnel of blood method would’ve worked.
And I do think the bandolier was artistic oversight.
My theory is that this field destroys, not blocks, nonliving material that touches it. And since it’s been mentioned that these artifacts can only be destroyed under very special circumstances, the field just doesn’t have the power to affect them.
Oh absolutely. Rather like ‘my skin is impenetrable’ and ‘my claws can cut through anything’, something was being over-hyped.*
* Note the distinction between ‘something’ and ‘all’. The field does kill. But the implication of its power was greater than the implementation.
Also entirely possible it has a few deliberate workarounds built in and Deus happened to find one.
Alternatively, it having any effect whatsoever on inanimate matter is utter fabrication designed to waste time while the alarms (that aren’t working) are responded to.
I always enjoy ‘nothing is impossible’ because if you read it the other way it means it’s impossible for there to be nothing
Wyrmil can only speak to the effectiveness of the death field. The specialised no entry field leaves a lot to be desired.
Yea. Or at least the way the two interact. I am sure it would stop a sword or a dead stick being poked in, unless it is broken or Deus was lying. The plant just did not die fast enough for that effect to kick in.
I think Wrymil qualifies for a Darwin Award because he stood so close to the field in the first place, even knowing that it could kill him if he touched it.
She may have been a back-up plan.
The original designers were probably from the Olympian contingent of the council. They installed a Medusa-like enchantment (or even a medusa head-snake) into each column with an arrangement of lenses to project it in a circle downward. This will petrify anything that crossed the boundary. The other contribution was from the alien faction that installed a bio-filter from a transporter. This normally screens out biological materials, but they ‘reversed the polarity’ in order to keep out all NON-biological materials.
The objects inside were already programmed into the system so they were not hindered by the filter.
Medusa, Basilisk, and Cockatrice can only petrify if your gaze meets theirs. Plenty of stuff gets looked at by them but not petrified. You can probably beat the skill just by being blind.
I’ll be honest…. I can’t tell exactly what’s happening here. What’s he doing with the potted plant? He gets it through the field because it’s organic, ok. He bops the item… and how does the item not stay in place? I thought part of the trick was that it can’t get out because it’s not an organic thing?
Yeah, was thinking the same thing. I mean, this is so stupidly simple, and Deus said only living things can pass through, and why would a field distinguish between something going in or out?
Yea, I had discounted this as being a possibility.
However it falls down to the fact that it is not a ‘field’, as described, but rather a shell. So as David says once you have passed the wall (by being living) you are now inside and thereby the other effect does not come into play.
The other conclusion that folks have, correctly, drawn is that the shell only protects one-way. Things can’t get in but they can come out.
Again seriously sub-standard manufacture, given that the ‘field’ is there to stop the artefacts getting out, and there is no useful function to be served in building that feature in (although it could just be a limit to the technomagic used). Either way the Twilight Council should demand a refund.
If you think about it, even with a technical limit imposed they would have been better off building it so the one-way effect worked in the opposite direction. OK it still has a flaw, in that non-living things could touch the artefacts (and thereby maybe activate buttons or such like).
But at least the artefacts themselves could not be removed (without a significant power not available to a five year old tester, such as teleportation or the ability to transform invulnerable artefacts into living matter).
Considering the level of world-level destruction implied for the power level of these artifacts I really like your wording of the field being there to stop the artifacts from getting out. Just how many of these could be semi (or more) sentient, and self-mobile. Unless that’s a different room of precautions.
In the Samurai Jack episode ‘The Fairy’ Jack tries to get a fairy trapped in a magic orb to grant a wish to send him home. The orb allows anything to enter, but nothing to leave. He gets his hand caught in the unbreakable orb and has to use the wish to set himself (and the fairy) free.
I’m a little disappointed it was that easy. It sounded like the field would repel anything non-living and insta-kill anything alive. Yet here we see that something non-living passes through it and that something alive was only locally/temporarily killed and starts to recover right away once clear from the field.
It might be that anything non-living is pushed out of the field, which seems like a design-flaw for exactly the reason shown.
Maybe Wyrmil has advanced healing, allowing him to recover from the field, however large scars seem counter to that. And if being able to recover fast is all that is needed to survive touching the field it is badly designed as well since most super natural creatures (at least in some stories) have some form of fast healing.
Deus’ method shouldn’t work if the field works the way he said it does. Only living matter can pass through, so why did the sword fall through? Shouldn’t it have bounced off the inside?
it’s to prevent access in. likely any artifacts capable of moving on their own would have different setups to prevent them getting out… but in fairness to the Twilight Council, this is really an out-of-context heist. after all, remember the somewhat ridiculous amount of overkill traps the vault had in the first place, plus the fact the vault is under a kilometer or so of water, and accessible via a virtually completely hidden cave system.
you still can’t plan for EVERY contingency.
In short, if someone secures an area from everything/everyone trying to get in, then the owner wouldn’t be able to enter either. There has to be something in design that allows entry somehow.
Seems natural to assume that the council has a way to disable these fields.
Girl Vampire: OK I have translated the document and it confirms that the key is definitely kept in the greenhouse. But I dare not try to access the document detailing them, as we have already risked exposure too much.
Guy Vampire: Mmm. My scouting went well, but we have a problem. It is rigged with five layers of alarms. And is surrounded by man-eating plants. And woman-eating ones beyond that. Plus robot… well you get the gist…
Girl Vampire: Even worse, this tells me that the door is timer-controlled, to match the head gardener’s schedule. So no way for either of us to get in, without the “Big ‘Ol Book of Vampires!” Not without ending up as fertiliser ash.
Guy Vampire: This is so frustrating! I can even see into the greenhouse, with my night-vision binoculars. But I just cannot see the key, for all of that bamboo!
lol
A wizard gives you a shield he says can protect you from anything, and you test it by having them shoot lightning at it. When it succeeds, do you assume that means it can withstand literally anything, up to and including the wrath of the Abrahamaic God himself directly trying to fist you into nonexistence…or do you assume that means it can withstand XdY electricity damage?
You judge what you know of the character and knowledge base of the wizard, and what explanations he gives as to his claims. If you deem him trustworthy, with a sage-like knowledge and a really convincing reason, then it would be foolish to assume that it does not work on anything else.
But it would be wise to test it on other things too. Discreetly. No point insulting someone so scholarly and generous. Especially if he is able to turn you into a frog.
If you do displease him though, keep the shield handy, and hope it protects against “ribbit!”
Yawn. The field said to not let nonliving matter pass through it lets nonliving matter pass through it because Deus is so clever and clearly nobody in the entire council would have thought of poking things with a stick. Basically, this entire sequence is not written to showcase Sciona, or her team, as I would have expected. This entire sequence is written solely to showcase how Deus is so, so clever and the stupid magic people are so stupid.
And no, the comment under the comic does not help. Security through obscurity or whatever, I don’t care, at this point why does the field exist. It does nothing that a metal chest in the same room, which were invented in the -1500 BC, wouldn’t have done better.
you know, if you stopped trying to be a smartass, you might take the time to note that the Bamboo was technically ALIVE when it passed through the barrier starting out, and simple inertial force knocked the item out of the field. the field is there to prevent ACCESS to the items. it was never mentioned to prevent anything from LEAVING the field, and if there’s anything in that vault that’s capable of mobility, you can bet your ass it probably has a field or something that DOES restrict things from leaving it.
No, I will not stop being a “smartass”, because this entire thing is basically “this villain is the super cleverest” in the most cheap light novel villain way. Deus is just Altair from Re:Creators but without the waifu.
Like, this is not some weird contingency that Deus exploited. That would have been fine. This is literally “hit it with a stick”. EVERYONE in the comments thought of the stick thing and then went “nah, that would be dumb. If nothing else, the field would probably stop it from getting out”. Except, yes, it was, in fact, that dumb.
Sorry, but there is only so much Aizen I can take in a comic before I start being a “smartass”,
three ligitemate reasons why the field dosnt affect the artifact for you
1) the design committee didn’t consider it (lets face it if nothing is getting in why provent the artivact getting out if it inherently cant move)
2) magicly destroying the artifact could be dangerous (most settings that have dangrous artifacts have massive side affects to destroy them think Tunguska or Chernobyl) note the field is a disintergration field
3) the fact that the field literally kills anyone who tries to cross them i think this is more of a deterrant then defence
plus the fact that dues bypassed literally the whole dungeon (which was dimentianally anchored so no teleporting and at the bottom of the sea)
If you look at it out of context it is a weak defense.
But not if you have thieves who are pressed for time* and who know precisely the nature of the trap and also know that there are two aspects to it.**
Plus do note that the author does remind us of the greater context. Not to mention agreeing that it ends up easy to overcome (with the above advantages).
But life can be like that sometimes. Deus just capitalised on it. Do note though that he has had the upper hand here because he caught Sciona by complete surprise. From the outset this has had her rattled, and off her game. Shoving Wyrmil in looks to have been a power-play to try and intimidate Deus (it is entirely possible that Sciona had planned a lame-arsed move too,*** but decided to go with brutal instead).
Which did not rattle him.
* The only reason they are not is because Scionia found a way to get the magical internet turned off. So that is a lot more than ‘use a stick’.
** Having insiders help you is actually a real world problem, with any top-end security system designed for organisations (i.e. the more people involved the greater this risk). But if this happens then practically any defense can be compromised. And we have seen that with the whole list above.
It just so happens that the insider-informed solution can be a simple one. Without insider help though (or something comparable) the first a burglar would know about this trap is being dead. Which is a lot more effective than a metal safe.
*** A tunnel of blood, for example. Not to knock those who suggested it. Simply that it too is a ‘man that is too simple a work-round’ type of solution. Again though Dave does acknowledge that the plant trick is such.
The field was stated to prevent non-living things from passing through, not from entering, and it seems like that would be the easier effect to produce, as well. Couple that with the fact that we’ve seen clothing enter the field and it’s no wonder that people are either angry at the counterintuitive nature of this solution or disbelieving the existence of the no entry field.
Yes, Drascin is being a smartass about it but this isn’t a smart solution to the problem posed. It’s an oversimplified solution to a much lesser puzzle.
A (regular) metal chest doesn’t kill anyone who touches it without protection, nor does it prevent against being hacked apart by other things. A metal chest is also more easily moved and stolen entirely as opposite to a fixed pillar with a magic field.
There is reason for the field to exist as an additional obstacle, however it clearly doesn’t work as effective as it was hyped up to be.
Metal chests rust. Magic fields don’t. Presumably, at the time the vault was built, nobody could bring a bamboo forest through a portal there either. Sciona also disabled the anti-teleport defenses.
Explain to me how would you get a stick in there when it’s impossible to teleport so you have to physically carry a living plant to the bottom of the ocean, navigate through a labrynth of underwater tunnels, fight a magical humongous mecha, pass through a room full of all kinds of deathtraps(The final of wich is the room itself pancaking anything inside), open a door thats probably several tons of self regenerating metal and still get enough time to get out before The Council get there because the Guardian activated the alarm.
And what makes you think that someone that passes trhough all that can’t just smash your metal chest?
As for the field itself, Sciona did say “It is down here because it is too useful not to use” meaning that The Council would need a way to retrieve these particular artifacts if needed, it may have been a case of “You say bug I say feature” or it may have been the only way they thought to get the artifcts and since it helped The Council and under normal circumstances it is impossible to carry a disposable living thing down there it(kind of) makes sense.
I’m not disputing the effectiveness of all the OTHER traps. The golem, the regenerating door, the crush ceiling, all those were pretty legit traps. I’m saying that from the council’s perspective (reminder, these are magic guys) if anyone is good enough to bypass all those, this would do nothing to deter them further because this is a formality that is defeated by a first level druid. Or anyone who brought a fruit inside a bag of holding. The barrier, as presented, is not a puzzle that would waste time, it’s basically the equivalent of taking a thing that you have put inside a safe that is inside a cement block that is inside a shark that is inside the Almighty Leviathan, and putting a bike chain on it.
Except nobody apparently realized that it was a bike chain that any hedge wizard could bypass except Deus here, which is what annoys me. Especially because under the terms Deus actually said, Sciona’s solution of “use living thing to keep at bay, punch through” would be necessary (if, of course, better done with some kind of animal).
I was actually thinking that it is effective BECAUSE of the other traps, like, it’s dependent on the other traps killing any disposable lifeform that the incredibly resilent intruders may have brought with them.
I was thinking that the council must have considered that someone strong enough to pass trough all the traps in that short window would eventually appear but most likely, anything and anyone they brought with them would be but a smear on the wall by the time they reached the vault. Bags of Holding fall under Dimensional magic so I doubt they would work in a place that doesn’t allow portals
Obviously I had not considered the existence of druids althought it did make me think. Are Druid’s Plants truly alive? In a lot of universes the plants that a druid creates out of nothing without “Improving” existent plants just wither and turn to dust after a few seconds/minutes/hours. Can a level 1 Druid truly create life out of the Aether? It’s definitelly organic but, is it alive?
What’s Deus going to do next???
Load up his shopping cart with more weapons to put into his display case of course. Which is his real motive actually, he doesn’t look for some kind of doomsday weapon, he just wants something pretty to look at.
On the contrary, there are many easier ways to get pretty display pieces. Deus wants them for their power but not so much to use them as to simply know he has that power and be able to fantasise about its use.
A) I was mostly just joking though Deus seems to be the type to actually do this.
B) Deus is the type that doesn’t want replicas and wants the real thing. He’ll also want something that nobody else is able to get.
He gets to add Prince Nuada’s sword to his wall…
*turns head away from monitor, with a wince*
Not a euphemism. Not a euphemism. Nope, definitely not.
*runs away and hides in kennel*
I’ve been wondering about why the artifacts can go through the field (the way I see it, it should be more complicated to make the field one-way and I really don’t see the point in it since it’s supposed to keep the artifacts from getting out anyway).
But my main question about it remains, is anyone else under the impression that Deus has been played by Ben Affleck these last few pages?
It may not be that the field is “one way” but that the artifacts can’t be affected by them. Because they’re ARTIFACTS, and artifacts tend to be rather resistant to damage and destruction.
Finally, someone else who cottoned to this.
I think it is the field will push any non-living object out of it. So when Deus tosses a living object in. The artifact hits the field and is ‘repelled’ right out. This is not an adaptive effect, it is a light bulb. Does X job well so we use it. Not built exclusively for this vault.
I thought so at first too, but looking at the page again we can see the bamboo breaking when it hits the inside of the field, so it did stop the now no longer living bamboo from exiting, but for some reason it didn’t stop the artifact.
If they made the field to keep the artifacts from getting out, then no one would be able to get them for use. The whole point of a one-way field is so that there IS a way to USE the thing that the field is protecting.
Well that is the option I would go for on the apocalyptic artefacts, if not the others. Even if you do have it in mind to destroy some other world, there should be a period of reflection before doing that. So having to figure out how to turn off or bypass the field would be a good safety feature.
The whole reason they are stored here is so they can’t be used.
If a situation arises that needs an artifact to solve it I’m sure the Council has a way to deactivate the field, as well as the other countermeasures we’ve seen, so they won’t have to rely on a trick like this to get the artifact out.
Actually using the bamboo trick makes some sense for the council.
It is a simple, uses renewable resources for the extraction, and is so obvious as to be ignored by all but the most perceptive individuals.
*sniff*
‘Tis true. I haz no alertness bonus!
*cries*
It’s called penetration testing. There are entire companies built around penetration testing of various kinds.
https://www.tenable.com/blog/combining-penetration-testing-with-active-and-passive-vulnerability-scanning
Hey, I am not clicking on a porn link. ;-)
So glad I was not the only one thinking of what other industries would have ‘penetration testing’. XD
I was looking for this comment, I was gonna make it myself.
And if you listen to some of the stories pen-testers tell, there really are such dumb workarounds in all kinds of products. Check out “DefCon” on youtube sometime…
I’d have used a crossbow with a just cut bamboo quarrel, but it’s really the same thing.
People don’t realize that much of your food is actually alive. Apples, bananas, pears, strawberries, pomegranate, potatoes, all the leafy stuff – people eat a lot of living or killed when cooked things.
I suppose he could have just pegged potatoes at it.
Great, now I’ve got this image in my head of Deus using a spud cannon to knock the artifacts out. Imagine the look of the council when they come back here and see several of their artifacts replaced with a potato floating in there.
LOL.
OK if I had the money I would commission Dave to do that as a vote incentive.
That’s…a lot nicer than my method of throwing hamsters at the artifacts.
A rather charred and withered potato, but still, a potato!
A tuber cannon would totally work in these conditions. Or really any kind of root vegetable with its stems still intact. Carrots, turnips, yams, rutabagas. Possibly better since all the kinetic energy from them being fired at high speed would still be in play on the now desiccated and fried starchy blobs.
I’m not sure if fruit would count though, once separated from its originating plant.
rocket launcher with purple tuberous vegetables as ammo. can’t Beet that.
Wa wa waaaaaah
*stops blowing and puts tuber away*
*gets out a pair of tuna*
*looks at Beethoven sheet music*
*starts beeting away*
Less moral, but speaking of tuna, he could have whacked it with a New-York-style paper-wrapped Mackerel.
And, like, this is a vault for magic things. With all the magic types we’ve seen there probably are druids that could magic something alive to throw into the barrier with a wink. Heck, like you said, just cast Summon Potato and lob one inside, bam, field breached.
Or an elementalist who summons and throws small earth elementals through the field to extract the artifacts.
Yep. Basically, if Deus had used some specific tech solution, I would have gone “sure, he blindsided the council designers with something they aren’t familiar with”. If he had used some weird combination of spells he’d learned from his many sources, I’d have gone “well, designers couldn’t think of everything”.
But if the last barrier of your magic vault to protect against magical people made by magical people is rendered completely useless by a first level spell, why do you even HAVE the barrier. From the magical designers’ point of view, anyone who is good and powerful enough to even be in this room would be able to breach this as an afterthought!
Good arguments. But predicated upon knowing what the force field actually does. Which either requires advance knowledge (requiring more than just a first level spell) or time to experiment. Which the designers could not plan for.
Note the last is an absolute. Every real-world vault ultimately only delays the robbers. If someone has expertise, resources and unlimited time any defense can be overcome. And even throwing super powers into the mix, if you build a ‘this cannot be opened by any means’ defense then a suitably well prepared enemy can bring a ‘thing which can open anything, including things which cannot be opened by any means’. Or just teleport stuff out.
Reminds me of a story from a guy I know who worked in security. They built an “impenetrable” bank vault door. And to demonstrate how good it was, they had a demonstration of it to investors where they hired a reformed bank thief to try and break into it, offering him a million dollars if he could do it (and put it inside the vault).
To the investors, they first demonstrated the CEO of the placing the million in the vault, using a thumblock tied to his thumbprint as the key. The thief spent 5 seconds to pull a gummy bear from his pocket, press it on the thumb lock pulling up the CEO’s finger oils in the right shape, and pushed it back down, the scanner read the slight bumps caused by the oil and opened the lock; the reformed thief walked away with a cool million and the product failed, obviously.
Simple and effective. It just again brings up a comparison in my mind. Deus vs. Lex Luthor who is the better billionaire villain?
Mmm. Deus has more hair… Lex has less scars.
Ooh, Dues has prettier henchpeople.* We have a winner.
* I am thinking Superman the movie series and the less-than inspiring guy flunky Lex had. I imagine comic Lex will have had the odd sexy gal. But there is a difference between that and always having eye-candy around.
Errr… sorry Vale… please don’t stab me!
Comic Lex eventually had two Amazon (but not from Paradise Island itself, from a breakaway community instead) bodyguards, Hope & Mercy, who had originally appeared with animated Lex…
… Lex in the DCAU[Animated Universe] had Marcy- this lead to a knock-down (mostly offscreen) fight between her + Harley Quinn when Joker stopped in…
… too slow on the draw again…
I love Deus as a Character. He is oblivious not a standard Good or Evil character, but he is finally a “villain” (if he is one not certain about that yet xD) kind of character who understands loyalty and its value. Too it appears that he would not just drop his allies for short term gains. So curious where to come next.
And he has clearly taken the Evil Overlord list to heart.
He probably never needed to look at the list.
Not after he finished writing it, anyhow.
He SO smells like an avatar of Mammon to me.
There is whiff of ‘old money’.
It would be entertaining if Halo casually explained all of this in about one panel, to an increasingly less-horrified and more-speculative Council.
So I just thought of a (dumb) reason for why the field would allow the artifact to move through it. What if the pillar and field are created first, with an identifier for the artifact build into the spell. Then after the field is set up they push the artifact through it till it is caught by whatever is keeping it afloat in there.
As long as they think the field to be impenetrable so that nobody is touching the artifact to knock it out of place everything works as intended, but it has a serious flaw for the reason shown.
The author does admit, in his blog, that
And then go on to remind us that it is just one aspect in a many-layered defense. Plus do not forget that normally villains would not have detailed knowledge of defenses. So Sciona managing to recruit insiders to help her and also pulling off the impressive trick of getting the magical internet turned off, is what lessened the effectiveness of this trap.
Under normal circumstances the ‘keeps out non-living; would (depending on how it is implimented) prevent robots, constructs and undead from snagging artefacts.
Whilst the ‘kills living’ would stop pretty much all the other faction members we have seen.
So unless any robbers packed a greenhouse, they would be limited to just how many team-mates they were willing to sacrifice. Once they had figured out what the two properties were, and how to overcome them. But that takes time. Which, combined with the numerous other defenses slowing them down, would normally make that a pretty strong defense.
The flamethrowers in the previous room would have made bringing plants through by that route a bit harder…
Or a potato. A potato would also work as well as the bamboo. Potatoes remain alive for months after plucking.
How long after cooking though? o_O
So, the “only living things can pass through, and they die”-field is only blocking the path in *one* direction?
I would have thought that it shouldn’t just block stuff from getting out, but that it would block the (generally not living) items inside of it from passing through (and out of) the field, too. That would block the bamboo trick.
(The “fill the field with something living, then punch through the dead stuff left behind” trick would still work, although that, too, should have been possible using plants…)
Heh, called it, exactly! Bat the artifact out of the field with a potted plant.
Now I need to get my minions.
No throwing cubs at the artifacts!
But you may use pups.
*cries*
Or orphans.
Evil little blighters.
Don’t listen kids. I am sure you are wonderful!
Or you could use ACTUAL bats. Sciona still has a vampire handy that can be broken down into her constituent components (probably not voluntarily).
Yes be we don’t know if undead count as alive in this universe yet.
I know someone we can count on, to tell us.
Deus: “bloodthirsty amateurs…”
It’s a good defense *if* your intruder doesn’t know about it til they arrive and didn’t think to bring plants with them.
Panels 3/4: Sciona seems to be thinking, “NICE jawline! This troll’s a little big for my tastes…”
Heh. He is trolling a (sorta) troll. And that is not the most complementary panel for Deus.
Prediction time: now that the Regenator is off of Sciona’s “shopping list”, Deus is going to use it to revive Wyrmil, thereby gaining yet another ally and earning Sciona a vengeful foe.
if wormy is still alive deus could potentially get the regenerator heal him and get another useful minion
Please don’t forget to vote, to show our appreciation to Dave, for the comic.
It would be nice to keep the number 1 position, for the rest of the month. But there is stiff competition! Checking out the sexy vote incentive will help us to keep up though.
There is no system humans can design that cannot be hacked by some other human(s) sooner or later.
A human can design a system unhackable by, say, dogs. So we’d need a superhuman intelligence to design a vault humans couldn’t break into. The only way I can imagine writing such a feature into a story is to say that the humans, looking at some aspect of it, can’t figure out -what- it is: is a corkscrewy energy-looking thing an n-dimensional lock? or is it the door itself? Is it alive? Is there even such a mundane concept as a “door”?
But the real challenge would be that, in a story, a realio-trulio unhackable (to the readers) vault would be no fun at all.
Well, the description didn’t mention that the field lets the object itself out. It was an important piece of the puzzle
Indeed. “Only living matter can pass through it” is not the same as “only living matter can enter”.
You should give Deus stick.
God that is embarassing for Sciona. She got owned so hard Abe Lincoln is gonna issue a Proclamation.
O.K. What I want to know is why that sword was considered SO utterly horrible that it had to be locked up in the vault in the first place. It could be based on what the council considers utterly horrible. It may just create a super bright glow of sunlight every time it is pulled from the scabbard. Lethal to some, harmless to others.
It can cut through anything.
Including the world.
In some versions of DC Comics’ continuity, Wonder Woman had a Hepahestus-forged sword that was so sharp it could split atoms!
possibly it has a blade that regenerates if broken, or switches blade style to the weilder’s desire or mastery, so each swing could be a different type of blade if you were well-versed.
You are restricting your imagination far too much. Nicely themed ideas, but pitched at mundane magical item level. Rather than evil artefact. A nice, handy, magical item like that would be wasted in here.
Not to mention that an artefact would have to be pretty weak if the blade could be broken. And none of that is saying ‘apocalyptic’ to me.
Unleash the blades of your imagination! Cut through my quibbles with brilliant reposts! Well, you get my point.
The blade regenerates if broken, AND switches blade style to the wielder’s desire or mastery, so each swing could be a different type of blade if you were well-versed.
Sidenote 1: Blade style is a more inclusive description than exclusive.
Sidenote 2: The previous owner read Fred Saberhagen’s “Swords” series as well as having watched Highlander.
The Song of Swords describing the blades in Saberhagen’s SWORDS series.
Stormbringer?