Grrl Power #573 – Fair play
Sciona’s wings are significant appendages. You can see why she wanted them back. When she says “apply enough force” she’s talking about a considerable amount, not something most supernatural creatures could casually generate. In a world of Supers and shaped charges, this does not provide adequate security, but the The Council has been relying mostly on obscurity rather than updating the vault’s systems to deal with things like C4. Also the death field is laughably easy to overcome anyway. Unless it’s reflecting all over the interior of the Artifact Chamber willy nilly.
There were a couple lines I had considered for Deus’s retort there on panel 8. Mostly I wanted to point out that she was now fully female. I mean, it’s obvious she’s female now, and everyone uses female pronouns with her, but her orc body was male. Something along the lines of “Now that she has to sit down to pee again, she’s switched to full on bitch mode.” or something about PMS and stuff like that, but I decided against it. Deus is a bad guy, or at least plays at being one, but he’s not that kind of bad guy. (Yes he essentially told Cthillia he’d help her kill 99 people, but ignore that for now.) He may be a womanizer and have a round robin of lovers, but he was being a dick to Sciona earlier, and just now she was a dick to him, they’re even.
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That went better than I thought.
Looks I was half-right. She did apply Vehemence “power to burn” solution. But I didn’t think she would abandon ALL of her helpers. See if doctor Chuckles helps her next time she loses her head. She’s practically pushing them on Deus’ payroll.
At least looks like other’s theories about Epimorph were right too. I doubt Deus would offer help with recharging if it would mean killing humans. He’s doesn’t feel like that type of villain. Kill inconvenient dictator yes, but not pull random bum off the street. And there aren’t 99 inconvenient dictators around.
Inconvenient dictators, no. People legitimately awaiting execution that he can arrange to… alter the means of, probably.
Yeah, there aren’t as many of those as you would think, at least not that would need using the knife for, unless you go to some South American or African countries
Like the country where he has a large number of operations based, and the ear of the new king?
No one specified human lives, did they? Wave it through a cloud of may files, criteria met
Was just gonna say the same but you beat me to it, also euthanasia for terminally ill and suffering horrible pain? Or is that something you were gonna use the epimorph AGAINST?
It might require more substantial lives to charge, considering what it does. Just take Cthillia to a slaughterhouse and let her kill 99 pigs, lambs, cows, or some other animal we use for meat. Problem solved.
Pretty much what I was thinking on the 99 lives. No one said they had to be sentient. Or is it sapient I get those two confused.
The word you want is sapient. Sentient just means “able to perceive or feel things”… and by that definition, even an amoeba is sentient.
So are some politicians… barely :P
+1
+1
+1
The question on whether politicians are sapient is still up for study, but they ARE sentient…They respond best to being led around by a stack of lobbyist money.
Oh yeah…Another +1 for you.
The may flies bit has been tested, and has not enough souls. That is the criteria. People say 99 lives because it’s easier than saying 99 human souls. I’m a bit amazed at the lack of knowledge of this device here…
I was thinking 11 cats might do the job.
Lol.
This is rule lawyering. Problem is we don’t have the rule book to plow through looking for loop holes. Besides the GM (Dave in this case) can either over rule any overambitious rule lawyer, or if it’s been stated that the game is to be 100% by the book, find other ways to deal out the punishment.
Experience tells me you’d rather have the GM moderate the rules when the lawyers start riding their books into battle than having the GM making a mission on getting vengeance on the lawyers by throwing the book at them at every turn.
I suppose you have not heard of Old Man Henderson…
If you haven’t heard of Old Man Henderson, at least you can read about him. Henderson is proof that a GM can kill any character, but it could take a lot more effort to do so than it might for others…
*salutes*
There is one country with an overabundance of people on death row with the added onus of being easily persuaded to obfuscate things if enough money changes hands.
[from the sad and terrifying but true files about the USofA]
yeah but how many of those are innocent :P
i think he can find plenty of bad people that are directly interfering with his holdings across the globe.
Yea but the trouble with Americans, they are notoriously hard to bribe. They are given a decent wage and know there are way too many people watching them. Deux would have to convince the wardens that the death roll inmates would not be missed when they disappear, on top of offering a large sum of money that could not be spent less people ask why they are living outside their means. It’s easier to go to a third world country or send some supers to round up some gang members or drug dealers.
Also, if they are incarcerated in privately owned prisons then they are basically cash cows for the owners, are they not?
Perhaps, but they might also get paid by the state for those executions, and they’re not too broken up about a few gone here and there when the space gets filled to capacity because of zealous sentencing.
or the US.
Yea, whilst knife is not presently an option they are suffering a crisis over drug companies refusing to allow their image and international reputation to be tarnished by using their drugs in an execution. So various states are having to look at alternatives, such as firing squad or the electric chair. All of which have one disadvantage or another.
So Deus proposing knife execution and even supplying a fully paid for trained executioner, willing to work in every State, would actually be a credible proposal. Given the nasty protracted deaths that some inmates have faced, due to States experimenting with alternative drugs, it is plausible that even the inmates might opt for death by knife. Provided that Cthillia can demonstrate doing that relatively painlessly.
Actually, Cthillia can even cheat. Once she has poked the knife in, she can ensure an instant death by using her gaze attack. Provided she practices doing that without any showy effects giving away the use of a super power (/supernatural ability).
Although, she could even be up front about that. It would be the unique thing that she can add to the package. The guarantee that nobody will suffer a protracted death, precisely because she can supplement the knife with her super power.
In PR terms they could even liken it to a ritual samurai death. But pointing out that Cthillia would conduct it with the aim of minimising the pain (contrary to seppuku) whilst retaining the concept of having someone there who can finish the job quickly, if the process is too slow.
I can see that the concept of an ‘honourable death’ would appeal if it is pitched to the inmates that way. Although I am sure Machina industries would be canny enough to use different advertising for victims and their families.
I’m just surprised she left the Epimorph. She did seem to just teleport out of there leaving her… compatriots… to die. Death gaze can’t really hurt you if your gone before Cthillia can use it.
“…but not pull random bum off the street.”
It seems to me that Dues is implying that he’d like Sciona to be one of the 99, there…
“She did seem to just teleport out of there leaving her… compatriots…”
Well, Cthillia there seems like she was just offered a job, so that would only be Dr. Chuckles & what’s left of Wyrmil there…Everyone else is already under his employment. The best way out now would be the portal that Deus is using, so perhaps they should listen to what Deus might offer them.
Off topic Topic of the Day:
Does Dabbler own a motorcycle?
If it can be set to ‘vibrate your fillings out’…
That looks awesome.
Looks like her colour scheme too.
It does look awesome, but the bike and the rider were created in Daz Studio using the iRay render engine, and then composited onto a photo image.
It’s a variant of a motorcycle I’ve seen on DeviantArt. Here’s an example:
https://img00.deviantart.net/0b37/i/2016/078/9/f/all_in_a_day_s_work_by_tabascojack-d9vok9o.jpg
(Notice that the fenders and the mini-gun are the same, just different colors.)
A-ha. I knew if I looked hard enough, I’d find it.
https://daz-3d.deviantart.com/art/Whos-Next-3D-Art-by-Re-EvolutionArts-508842009
As for the background, the photo was taken in “The Peace Gardens” In Sheffield, England.
Is the bike made up out of whole cloth or is it a real make/model with a mini-gun digitally attached? (I know there are bikes that look vaguely like that — the long, low design with the front wheel pushed out in front — hence my curiosity.)
Err no, it is digital so made up out of these…
*holds paws up, with lots of ones and zeros piled up on them, frisking around*
Whoa, calm down there. Look stop I say. Man, how do you humans control your digits?
It’s made up out of whole cloth. They have a couple other variants of that same bike, though… such as one without the minigun and a different front fairing. But other than that, any resemblance to real motorcycles, living or dead, is purely coincidental. ;^)
… looks like Celty from Durara! updated (+ armed )her ride …
And finally got ahead in life… :P
That’s NOT a motorcycle.
THAT is bondage gear, with wheels.
So, yeah, Dabbler probably owns that.
Didn’t Dabbler have a Space Hovercycle in Wereworld?
Probably, but then again, a lot of her gear in Wereworld seemed like ‘burner’ Merc stuff, rather than anything that she had particular attachments to.
Point of order: everything that Dabbler has is self teleporting to herself and her storage.
Pointier point of order: everything that Dabbler owns, or has personally built, has a self teleporter
Needs more dakka.
Ew, deathfield. it’s so hard to get it out of the tiles.
That’s also a useful deterrent for when the Council finally shows up, If the death field starts oozing out of the vault through the hole, it makes it difficult fir people to get inside to find out what’s been taken..
Which makes me worried for what happens when our heros amke it there. Can they tell that the deathfield is now filling the room? Or will they walk right into it?
I wouldn’t be surprised if SOMEBODY walked into it, probably one of the unnamed Council members who helped open the vault. Which of course, triggers the ‘Intruder alert, seal the vault and kill everyone inside’ protocol because why would anyone with legitimate access get caught in the DEATH FIELD?
Relax, our heroines won’t die. After all, that would sort of put an end to the comic.
Reverse refrigerator light.
It turns off when the door is opened.
Would the death-field actually affect the undead in the party?
Since one of those in the lead (when we last saw them) into the vault happens to be a vampire, I think we’ll find out soon enough…
The senior council members would probably recognize it for what it is.
they seem to have knowledge of the inner workings.
plus a certain someone with a special bubble shield can easily go through it
and maxima can stroll in too i bet.
On the previous page, Deus confirmed that the council opening the vault will turn the death-field off.
They also opened the vault via normal means, which would (I assume) disarm the death field and other deterrents. Now, whether or not the death field shuts off instantly or not is another matter…
How exactly was Deus a dick to Sci-fright? Yeah, showing her up in the middle of her heist is bad, but was that really being a dick? o_O
Well, he was being a “jerk”, trampling all over her tradition of sacrificing allies. Who needs plants if you have sacrificial bloodbags walking with you.
Well, for one thing, Deus had the opportunity to show the bamboo trick to Sciona before she used Wyrmil as a punchbag. I mean, its not like Deus couldn’t guess that her solution to that problem would involve severely hurting someone, so he was being a dick by not revealing his non-violent method first.
Sounds more like being a dick to Wyrmil.
Oh yes, can totally see how that was entirely his fault
1. Took advantage of her heist without her knowledge, permission, or compensating her, after she’d done most of the important stuff (getting past the teleport wards and security). Without those, Opal’s teleport power was meaningless. Note that Deus talked about other ways to get in and it would require quite an investment in time, resources, and effort, so Deus got a free ride off Sciona…
2. … then MOCKED HER. THRICE.
2.1 Refused to compensate her for getting in on her scheme,
2.2 pointed out that his henchwoman could wipe the floor with her even AFTER she’d gotten her artifact of doom,
2.3 then one-upped her when it came to getting the artifacts through the security systems.
Have no doubt ego is at play here. They were both trying to show each other who’s boss, and that means humiliating or hurting the other, one way or another.
Okay, guess that’s confirmed then: Sci-fright’s lower nine-tenths was male
Indeed. Explains why she wanted to up her measurements a
bitlotMagical transgender surgery aside, Sciona’s attitude hasn’t changed at all…It takes a lot of balls to act like a dick.
I will simply point out that “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” and Sciona was scorned A LOT in the past few minutes by Deus
That’s… not what ‘scorned’ means
That sentence is often taken as being ‘a woman wronged’ (typically with the implications of being cheated on). However what Deus has been doing does match the dictionary definition.
OK he has been doing it in a snide way, for which various folks have offered trendy modern words to describe. Yet despite couching his contempt in polite terms, he has made his sentiments clear to those present.
In particular Deus has (politely) scorned Sciona for needlessly abusing her henchman and failing to find a simple solution to the death field.
Wouldn’t the floor get destroyed, pushed down/back, or whatever? Unless this is a living vault.
WAIT! Make a grabby arm out of whatever the floor is made of real quick, and take everything and run! Or, even better, a hazmat suit!
The floor might be made of the same magic rock the column was, and is resistant to the death field. It didn’t do anything to the fragments as it started spreading.
So, you’re saying, get Concretia in here.
She’s got probably the hardest power to guard against of just about anyone we’ve seen. She’s intangible and immune to most if not all forms of damage.
Interesting… Valid point also. The rock is both alive and dead.
I wonder how many cats did Schrodinger have to sacrifice for that?
Yay, he will be able to carry on making more fun movies.
Noo! A loss to Hollywood. And weird American wrestling… meh … who cares about that
The death field spills out, but not the ‘inanimate cannot enter’ field? Definitely sounds like 2 different contractors at different times. Vampires and robots should have no problem clearing the chamber.
Of course, that could still kill some Council members or bodyguards if they enter the chamber unsuspecting. I wonder if the death fields have a maximum radius?
By the way, paying bets on “BAB”. Who had BAB?
I am pretty sure vampires still count as “alive” according to the death field, remember they prefer the term “extra-living”.
Although Mum-Ra claims to be “ever-living” I wonder if the field could kill him?
What? Why did I mention him?
If the Eye of Thundera exists here, in this world and is right there inside the vault, then Mum-Ra should exist too! Since the Eye of Thundera didn’t get to this planet until the Age of Third Earth, then this isn’t likely to be Second Earth, so is DaveB’s world of Grrl Power actually Fourth Earth? Will we ever find out for certain?
No. Mum-Ra is what he transforms into in order to do battle. Otherwise he’s just a decaying form. This makes him a demi-lich.
Technicalities are great–the expanding field is moving, not the inanimate objects.
Ahahahahaha! :-D
Okay, I looked down on Sciona previously for being a petty villain who casually sacrifices allies as compared to Deus being fair, slick and mature, but I gotta respect a good, charming comeback and comeuppance.
—
Okay, but what about Sciona’s remaining allies? She basically left Cthillia and the vampires to die. And now we know Wyrmil’s really dead. As funny as her last act in the vault was, Sciona’s just burned some more bridges among fellows who’d like to see the Veil destroyed. If the idea was that her group’s remaining members would die in the vault, then she just overlooked right in front of her how someone teleported in and could teleport a bunch of her pissed off allies out. And Deus has shown himself to be the kind who “respects” (for lack of a better term) others. Does she really lack impulse control when it comes to spite and arrogance?
—
So when Halo, Max, Ingsol, etc. open the vault, isn’t it possible for them to get caught in the spread out death field? If we assume maximum expansion, the field has reached the doors and would extend further once it’s opened.
… Or would legitimately turning off the security systems and opening the doors turn if off? I worry that the system’s been damaged and tampered enough to stay on.
Addendum: Thinking about it, some respect again for Deus for being a good sport and for being a pragmatist.
Being a pragmatic villain or at least neutral entity pretty much automatically makes him my favourite character. If more comic book characters acted that way they’d pretty much be assured success if not victory.
If the “control column” is intact, legitimately opening the vault indeed does turn the death field off. Now it’s anyones guess what will happen. Seems like the generator is elsewhere and the columns was only containing it in one place. So, I’m more leaning towards “council members are not in danger from the field”. But, another point is, legitimately opening the vault should also deactivate the guardian, which it didn’t. And we didn’t see Sciona doing anything to corrupt it, she bypassed it completely.
Mind you, the Death Field is normally confined to surrounding the treasures, it is not an immediate defense, but merely protective.
Thus, there would be no reason to have it connected to the regular defense systems, but could easily be connected to a secondary deactivation that has to be done inside the chambers.
We saw them open the door, and not instantly get beset upon by the field burning at their flesh. So they are safe enough.
…For now…
It depends mostly on how quickly the field expands & how long it’s been between Sciona’s vandalism & the arrival of the Council & Friends…Okay, not Friends exactly, but Associates.
How do you know Wyrmil is really dead? I didn’t notice any confirmation in the comics? Maybe I missed it
Hm. Good point. I just assumed it because he hasn’t reappeared since getting his face pushed into an anti-life cone and a fist punched through his chest.
Most of us are guessing he could survive on account of being “wurmy”- regeneration or the like. Sciona even says in 2638 that he could survive an explosion. Furthermore, Sciona’s “betrayal” would have made sense if he was that tough- rather than being callous exploitation of allies, it would have been a jerkass exploitation of allies instead (“Sciona, you bitch! You could have warned me you were going to do that!”).
But for someone supposedly so durable, he’s not back up yet. Maybe he’s just unconscious? Maybe he’s conscious but unable to speak? Or maybe that anti-life security system was too much even for him.
After all, Sciona has abandoned the group and Deus has offered Cthillia a job and to escape with them. Why didn’t he extend the same to Wyrmil? Deus could use more labor in pillaging the vault.
—
I had to review the archives to respond to you, Pablo T. But I’ve found something for all readers here:
Where are the vampires? Gunnhildr and Zova (? That’s what Gunnhildr called him in 2346)? At least one of them came with Sciona in 2634. But we haven’t seen either of them since, and it makes me wonder how they took Sciona’s betrayal of Wyrmil.
I think he’s still alive, but barely. He was still speaking when he fell to the floor after being used as an anti-death field tunnel.
Also it is clear that the emphasis should be on spree rather than shopping since neither Deus nor Sciona are paying for what they are taking rendering the whole shopping part rather dubious. And Deus disapproves of vandalism but not stealing which so him.
No, you can shop without paying
Yes…It’s called shop-lifting.
Yeah, takes strength to do that
How much strength it takes, would depend on the size of the shop. Lifting an entire Wal-Mart Supercenter would require considerably more strength than lifting a mom-and-pop bookstore. ;^)
I don’t know about that. Ever had to move boxes of those things? Books are quite heavy, and a bookstore is bound to have quite a few of them.
You might like this. One of my friends is the owner of a used book store. (She can also order new books by special request, but used books are her stock in trade.)
Well, she had some books that she just couldn’t get rid of, so she filled a box with them and put them outside the door, with a sign saying “Free Books”.
In walks this woman with a book in hand, who asks, “Excuse me, but do you have any better free books?”
Without missing a beat, my friend replied, “I’m sorry, we gave them all away to the better customers.”
Sounds like our local public library, seriously, they have been selling off books lately: what’s the fuck the point of a library that doesn’t have books? o_O
I have seen reporting on separate occasions, in different countries, of people setting up something that is a cross between a free bookstore and a library. Essentially all the books are available for anyone to take a few whenever they want. No ID, registration or deposit required.
There will just be a sign up, something like this:
Overall (those reported on) make a success, in that they get a lot more donations, from members of the public, than do not get returned. Plus occasional financial donations help to pay the running costs.
It is worth noting that they were in middle wealth countries. I.e. not so poor that members of the public would be more likely to empty the shop to sell the books for food. Yet not so rich that the country can afford public libraries.
Yeah, we have one of those as well, will be taking some of the ex-Public Library books to the one near us
Hopefully ones that you bought from the library.
Otherwise that does not sound like you would be supporting your local library. ;-)
My guess would be that they’re1 getting rid of some old reference books (e.g. old encyclopedia sets), books that they have extra copies of, books that have been converted to a digital format, books that are mangled and not worth restoring, etc., to make room on the shelves for new material. Or at least, I would hope that’s what is happening.
Some of those though would not sell. I suspect that they may also be picking the least popular titles to sell, to get other ones that are more sought-after.* Just like retail shops need to show that they are providing what the customers want (via sales) libraries will be required to show that their services are being used.
If a library’s stock becomes stagnant, and out of date, then they will loose their more avid readers. I know that I lost interest in my local library once I had worked my way though all their science fiction and fantasy. Whilst they could order in new books, on demand, that process was far too slow to match my tastes. I got through a book a day.
OK that is not a normal rate, and it was aggravated by the library being a small town one and that, at that time, books were cheap to buy. But the principle remains true, even with less extreme situations. Libraries need to provide books that interest people.
So I hope that Guesticus‘s library still has well-stocked shelves. Because if they are actually getting empty, then it is a sign that they may be winding down to close.
That happened to a supermarket here. Stock was getting spread out further and further on the shelves. But asking the staff just got replies of ‘everything is OK, there is no problem’. Until the doors closed permanently. Although I do not know when, as I saw the writing on the wall and changed to a supermarket that stocked more than just the one brand of any given item.
* Mind you they may have just as much trouble shifting a boring book as an out of date reference manual. But being ‘put up for sale’ does not necessarily equate to ‘getting sold’. I imagine a bunch might end up either being given away or sent for recycling.
@Yorp:
Another fast reader, huh? I can go through the average-sized paperback in about two hours, but more commonly three or four if I’m taking my time. The only thing that keeps me from having lost interest in my local library is that it is on the other side of the city, so making a trip to pick up more books requires a half-hour commute (15 minutes each way) if the traffic is light and the signal lights cooperate. That’s why I haven’t read the entire sci-fi and fantasy sections yet.
Before you ask, taking the public bus would be even more inconvenient. The nearest bus stop to my house is 2 miles away (which is the price I pay for living in a neighborhood that was only recently annexed to the official city limits), and there would be a transfer along the way from Line 7 to Line 8.
Although I have a big personal library (larger than the village’s one), I avoided reading, since I emigrated, over eleven years ago. Simply because days and weeks can vanish once I do start. Unlike here, where I get regular breaks, where I am doing other things, with reading I keep going non-stop.
However when I had some time without a computer/internet, boredom drove me to reading again, until it was fixed. Here is the weird thing, my rate of reading had gone up to two books a day!
The punchline on that joke reminds me of a song I’ve heard…Particularly the verse about the woman who was a little bit late bringing out her trash.
Do Sciona’s wings remind anyone else of the anime/manga Elfen Lied? First thing I thought of.
I was thinking further back than that – Tenchi Muyo
yeah last comic I made an overly done laundry list of light wings in games and anime, didn’t even touch on all of them. The light wings with a high enough spiritual or psionic power level is a trope in anime and manga.
i was thinking tyriel from diablo 2
Heh. Nice to see that Deus did not end up getting everything going his own way. And that Sciona managed to do that without exposing herself to any risk. A good resolution for a showdown between two masterminds.
Putting aside the physical issues, having male orc hormones must have played havoc when compared to the female drow ones her brain should have been interacting with.
A couple of extra reasons for why Sciona was … cranky.
is she even a drow?
its just that the big glowing wing made out of magic make me think she is something else, not certain what though, a nephilim or something like that? some thing angel like?
Yes. Some variant thereof anyhow, of a name yet to be chosen. Per Dave’s blog on the previous page.
Today’s blog does imply that the wings are part of her racial package though. So ‘winged dark elf’ would be a more accurate place-holder, until an official designation comes along.
Perhaps something in the vein of Unseelie Court fae with mebbe a splash of dokkalfar?
hmm, perhaps she is a super. Like a high level Esper (awakened) who get wings made of energy, its an anime trope. (A Certain Scientific Railgun) / (A Certain Magical Index).
reach a high enough psionic or spiritual power level and you get these nifty energy wings.
Did ACSR actually get cool later on then? All I remember was people throwing loose change around in their underwear.
Doesn’t sound like you got very many episodes in then.
I mean the esper stuff went kind of nuts after awhile, heck first arc ends with a psionic manifestation fetus of God thing trying to destroy a power plant, and power copier.
No, she isn’t. As per the blog Thursday: “So yeah, Sciona isn’t actually a dark elf (or a drow or a shadow elf etc.) I haven’t quite come up with a name for what she is yet…” My vote is towards some sort of supernatural being. I need to go back to the Council page and see if I can find a match.
Darn it. I read “isn’t” as “is”! Thanks for pointing that out to me.
*sigh*
I really don’t want to wear glasses again. I had gotten used to a relaxed lifestyle where it did not matter if everything beyond arm’s reach was blurry. So my calluses of long-term glasses wearing have long since faded.
But I guess I can’t put off wearing reading glasses for much longer. :-/
Hey, DaveB could you talk a bit louder?
Regardless of what she is, messed up hormonal balance.
This is a bit off of current page topic but I think Halo has met her match in “descriptive” language!
https://pastutopia.com/?comic=comic-for-thursday-august-18th
That is a good attempt. But Sydney still wins on quantity and creativity, in my opinion. Half of her extended diatribes are repurposed mundane words.
I’ll give you quantity and I’ll even allow a push on creativity but whereas Halo’s is basically a string of semi-random, generalized adjectives, Miko’s is a devastating, rapier-like personalized assault on her target. While Halo might be better at capturing an audience’s attention, Miko is far better at destroying the specific target.
In either case, I for one, do not wish to get into a “debate” with either one o them. I find it interesting that they a both young and both female. Sailors be dammed! They’re beyond your league.
Heh. I would love sparring with Sydney. If it were not for the risk of ending up on the wrong side of The List!
Oooh, another Far Side of Utopia fan!
Miko’s not quite up to Sydney’s level. Give her a few more years.
Guilty! I found the FSOU characters to be believable, complex, well thought out and they very much follow their personalities. The world building and physics are also interesting, self-consistent (within the premise of the story), shape both the action and the characters themselves and hint of back-story after back-story. Not quite as complex or complete as Datachasers but still a very good read.
I just recently found it and am about halfway(?) thru my first archive dive. It is slow going as there are a LOT of pages and I read all the comments and follow all the links. It is an active forum (including the author), and one misses a lot if one just reads the strips.
Nah, her use of “colorful metaphors” is not even the same league as Sydney. Even DaveB has had to cover up some of it with word balloons & such…I think the full impact of Sydney’s cursing would be enough to rip eardrums apart.
Vulgarity is not a measure of effectiveness. In fact, it is more a measure of a limited vocabulary that is typical of the American educational system. Calling someone an SOB or a f*&king idiot is not even close to the classics of wishing upon them: “May you live in interesting times” or “May the files of a thousand camels infest your armpits”. (Although I will admit that the first would probably go way over the heads of 90% of the populace.)
As lazy as people seem to be these days, I doubt it is a failing of the educational system. More of a case of people trying to express a sentiment in as few words as possible. “May a crazed weightlifter clean and jerk your sister” just doesn’t have the same emotional impact as a plain “F–k you”, and requires six times as many syllables.
And that’s the difference between ‘cursing’ and ‘swearing’
Although there is the even more effective literal cursing. When the wishing ill upon the target has tangible results. Now that is when you want to get really creative, so that your reputation makes others decide that there are indeed fates worse than death. And therefore never wish to anger you. Well either that or shoot you with a sniper rifle, before you get to speak.
But, of course, if you are living in a world where last words are allowed, a death curse is the most powerful of all, and can shape the fate of nations, until the end of time. So perhaps not the wisest course.
Hey, go back & read some of Sydney’s swearing…She definitely has no lack of vocabulary, she simply mixes some vulgarity in with it.
Much bigger fan of harems vorp sound effect compared to her wink. Makes me think of a fairy flying away when she teleports with a wink.
I bet those 99 people Deus is going to help Cthillia kill will all be ISIS terrorists or something. Y’know, awful people that nobody would care are gone, or that everybody would be glad they’re dead
Those scum who don’t deserve to share the name of a Goddess, did not exist back in 2011
It is an alternative world. I’m sure DaveB can comic some other scum group into existence for super heroes to combat.
WBC?
I mean, in my comic, I already put in a precursor to dealing with them.
How? Well, Eugene’s power is the power to copy powers he sees in comics, movies, commercials, etc. Sometimes effects are permanent.
Step 1: Catch yippie dog (Fidee) from next door in a tennis ball (that is now a ‘Pal Park Pokeball’. Seriously makes me sad no one gets the joke from that ball choice).
Step 2: Evolve it into Fido by shouting “I have the power!” while summoning the dog from the ball.
Step 3: Evolve it again by giving Fido (green tiger + doberman/bridled pit bull) the powers of Clifford and Cerberus.
Step 4: WBC gets eaten by Fidoom.
Comics? Does he just carry around the X Men vs Matthew Malloy stuff and laugh from behind his god mode?
No. He can copy a power earlier in the day, then use it when he finds it a good idea. Plus he’s got his gameboy with him for emergencies.
It would be frustrating to copy seven orbs, and to have one that he has no idea what it does.
What if he found out what it does before Halo? Especially if it turned out to be apologetically nasty, like she (and her interviewers) imagined (although in their case it was for the contents of Tubey in general, but one may have gotten it right for the last mystery orb).
Sounds like they should have just filled the room with death field from the start.
But remember what Deus said about each field being set to a different council member’s biometric reading, various genders, various species. If it was just one big field then they would need a more universal method to shut it off to enter if they need anything out of it, making it easier to break into.
I don’t but +1 regardless.
Please don’t forget to vote. The second place comic is closing fast! It would be a shame to loose the top position, in the rankings, this late in the month.
Thanks for the reminder
And if Deus contracts to kill the top 100 ISIS leaders, she’ll be a hero.
It’s all in the definitions.
… the question begs, did Sciona port completely out of the vault-or just to the outer room where Guenny was resetting the laser freeze cutter on another door(she no longer needs Cthillia to punch in the cut plug+ somebody respelled the guardian )?…
What else is Deus plan on aquiring?
The dreaded “Fluffy Bunny Headpiece”, an artefact which can create an Orphanage and Bunny Sanctuary with a wave of a paw. Not something that humans might consider dire enough for this vault. But an influential demon, with bunny phobia, managed to pull strings to get it locked away.
Beautiful reference to Sydney’s imagination. Sit, Ubu, sit. Good dog.
As much as possible.
The Rave Raven: an artifact with the appearance of a raven statue holding glowsticks and a pacifier around its neck; placing the artifact on a black surface causes it to play rave music and force everyone who hears it to rave dance till they pass out of exhaustion.
Knowing Deus, he’ll probably make 99 clones for Cthillia to kill. Not only does he have the means, but it’s also more discreet than looking for 99 people to kill.
Yet just as immoral, given that clones are people too.
Brings up a good related question. How healthy does the subject need to be? Can the Epimorph be used as a tool of euthanasia, and would that count?
What about already (or soon to be) aborted fetuses?
Does it even need to be a sapient being?
+1
Umm, must have missed that, can you please show me where it was revealed that Deus has the means to make clones?
Conjecture only, but he’s super rich and has several scientists under his employ, so a cloning lab wouldn’t be that surprising, really.
Well, even with Dues’ command of resources, 99 clones would be expensive & time-consuming to put into effect…unless he’s already got a cloning facility in operation somewhere. To let Chtillia run through that place would be a massive waste of resources, so I think Deus would opt for more…expedient…sources already available.
you know where you can find 99 people who can be killed without much moral backlash? small Warton countries. deus probably has bands of rebels, bandits and whatever that he is planning on killing already to keep the peace, may as well let his friend charge up his new sacrifice dagger.
Yeah I wouldn’t be surprised if Cthillia has killed 99 people in her life already just as general mercenary work.
So the attacks on The Veil were a red herring, a ruse to get the council to disable their ability to be notified when the vault alarms were tripped. Getting her original body back was Sciona’s only goal.
She hasn’t necessarily curtailed Deus’ shopping spree that much. They cut the door of this chamber open, so the death field will spill out into the Cooter Memorial Splat Chamber, but the other chambers are still closed (except maybe the one Gunnhildr is currently cutting into).
This page shows doors to four treasure chambers, but the coffin-shaped recessed weapon pedestals seem to be one per door. There are ten of those, so probably a total of ten treasure chambers.
Max can have Opal transportal them from one chamber to the next so the doors remain closed and the death field doesn’t leak in, so he can take his time collecting the rest of the artifacts.
I think DaveB explained at some point that the vaults themselves also have active defences that activate if someone enters through means other than the door.
Apparently, blowing up the door counts as valid entry for this purpose.
Also you said Max (can have Opal transportal), when you probably meant Deus.
Finally: Transportal is the best word of the day.
Yay! Glad to see that I am not the only one who has made that mistake!
*happy little puppy dance*
Seems like it. Although she may well have taken whatever was on that pedistal that Sciona just smashed. We did not see Her give the other artefact to Cthillia, for example, so her snagging one other toy is also a possibility.
Although Deus did seem to think that Sciona was here for the Epimorph, which does support your assumption. Weigh that against how pissed off she was though. Maybe just because of someone muscling in on her operation, on principle. However it could also be due to her having her eye on a greater prize.
By the way, we do not know where Sciona went. By the time Deus grabs what he can from this chamber, Sciona may have already grabbed all the key items from the other ones. And those chambers he may not be able to risk entering, because too much death field may have seeped out.
Although he could always walk around with a bamboo held in front of him to give warning. However that sounds both risky (when in a rush) and unlikely that he will be able to get all of his wish list. Especially where it overlaps with Sciona’s.
Or she may have enough confidence in her own capabilities that she does not want any more toys. Just the one which could fix her body, where her own magic could not.
In my own defense (and Yorp’s) Max is more interesting than Deus (to me) so I don’t feel very guilty about slipping up and accidentally using her name.
I don’t think Sciona-the-Bloody-Backstabber blinked to another chamber to grab more artifacts, since she doesn’t have any more Wyrmil-type sacrifices to use for access. Except perhaps Gunnhildr but that would only net her one more artifact.
Unless vampires can pass through the field because they are the LIVING Dead and survive it because they are the Living DEAD. But if that were the case, there was no need to sacrifice Wyrmil and would’ve been a major lapse in security by the Council, which KNOWS about vampies.
Sciona just demonstrated another way of accessing the items. She simply needs to decide what her priority items are, cut the pillar, with her wing, grab the toy and quickly move onto her next priority. Exiting for the next chamber as soon as she has her preferred items, or whenever she deems that the death field has spread too much.
Or, simply have the light wing pass through the barrier: no fuss, no dust
If indeed it can. Just because soft light can it does not automatically follow that hard light can.
We saw something similar in the car park fight. A beam, that looked a lot like a laser, bounced off of Halo’s shield. Whilst ‘hard light’ is not synonymous with ‘laser’ the general principle of ‘if X passes then so should Y’ is the same. Even down to the fact that, in both cases, X is the same (light) and we do not know the actual properties of Y.
Yes, but we found out that Mr Bubbles is a different beastie than these
True.
Remember though its not that matter can’t pass through the death field, its just that its attuned to repel inorganic matter and kill organic matter (which just means rapid cellular degeneration, so essentially a focused radioactive beam at the lowest, doubt they have necro-force as an easy to come by solution, think that would be something that would be locked in there). So we have nothing to go on on how these fields treat lasers (focused light) or hard light constructs; other than that regular light has no affect on the field other than making it visible, so partial interaction, enough to reflect off it enough that the naked eye can see that a field exists rather than it be an invisible field of death.
You are still making the assumption that the wings are not made out of matter. We have nothing to prove that. Granted they do not look fleshy. However they have been restored as a racial feature. Which strongly implies that they are living. Which would be killed.
Although hair is not, so they could be inorganic. Which would be repelled.
But, I do agree that it is possible they are energy based. After all Sciona’s teleportation did not have any blood effects, so seems more likely to be a racial power, than one of her spells. Ergo the wings may simply be a similar kind of manifestation.
One final point to consider is that Deus only mentioned the things that proved an interesting conundrum to him. He did not detail any superfluous details. For instance we can be certain that the fields will be tied in with the alarm system, to warn of any tampering or successful deactivation.
However Deus did not mention that (because the alarms have no way of contacting the outside world) just as he may not be mentioning defenses against energy or magical actions (because he did not want his snappy dialogue to get overlong and boring).
So whilst we do know about how it treats matter, and the fact that visible light passes normally, we cannot say, with confidence, how other things may be affected.
I don’t want to like Deus, since he is an antagonist. But he can be so affable that I find it hard not to like him.
I think he’s more an anti-hero than an antagonist.
I also doubt he’ll ever be in direct conflict with the team
I doubt he’ll ever not be in indirect conflict with the team. It’s like they know he’s an enemy but he’s too useful to do anything about.
That’s why Lawful Evils are the worst.
I label him as Anti-Villian
Not much of a team player that Sciona. she’s dribbling that villian ball with both hands. I hope we see it come back to bite her later the next time she needs help.
Is it just me, or does Deus seem more peeved than angry in panel five?
It’s beneath his dignity to express anger. Everything has to be at worst a minor inconvenience to him.
I very much wonder what state Wyrmil is in right now. I doubt he’s fully dead, but he is going to need lots of care to get back to full.
*busy cooking Yorpie Snax so I don’t read comments first*
Which Deus already set up with that nation he’s taking over. Plus, ‘slowly’. Time enough to grab a few more things real quick. It isn’t like he doesn’t have more bamboo.
I’m pretty sure that, while by no means fatal, peanut butter is quite bad for dogs.
Actually, it’s safe for them to eat… with one major quid pro quo (and several minor ones): Make sure it doesn’t have any Xylitol. Some brands (only three, at last count) of peanut butter use it as a sweetener, and it is deadly to dogs, even in small amounts.
The minor quid pro quos: Check the ingredients and try to avoid trans-fats (hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils), and get peanut butter that is as low in added sugar as possible. It’s healthier for them (and for you); the only drawback is that trans-fat-free peanut butter will have a shorter shelf life.
Aside from the Xylitol, though, it’s generally safe to give up to 10% of their daily calorie intake in peanut butter (or any other treat). Obviously it depends a lot on their recommended calorie intake. A healthy 15-pound dog might need about 600 calories per day, while a 55-pound dog would need about 1100 calories per day.
This works out to slightly over half (3/5ths) a teaspoon of peanut butter per day for the 15-pound dog, or slightly over a teaspoon (1-1/6th) per day for the 55-pound dog.
…is it just me, or is the idea of a slowly spilling death field that can be stopped by doors somehow creepier than the idea of an expanding death sphere that passes through everything?
Oooh, “Expanding Death Sphere”. I think I remember listening to some of their records back in college.
What I want to know is what was the disturbed item that looked like a giant old-fashioned can opener? What does it open, and what is let out?
Remember Icon?
You know, you’re making it hard for me to hate Deus. I mean, he KNEW he was pushing boundaries, and instead of being upset, he takes it as a ‘yeah, mea culpa’.
I’m glad that you continued to portray Deus as a “very big picture” thinker, and didn’t go down the “petty retort” rabbit-hole. His level of evil is one that I’m generally the most afraid of, because you never know how far in advance his moves are being made.
Also, it just goes to show it’s who you know AND being in the right place at the right time when looking for a new job. Way to go Cthillia. Fired and hired in almost the same moment. :P
Good point. Or, as Dr. Henri Mer says in Freefall:
“I hope you’re right, because he might be four steps ahead of us, and we’re just not seeing it yet.”
https://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2600/fc02563.htm
Add another potential species name to the list. Diconius. Nice use of Vectors, by the way.
I don’t believe Dave said what kind of lives were needed to recharge it, right? For all we know, 99 hamsters might suffice. ;P
…you monster!!
I’ll settle for 99 nine-banded armadillos or 99 wild hogs, both of which are agricultural pests in my home state.
The armadillo’s burrows pose threats to livestock animals, who may accidentally step in them. Furthermore, their burrows can weaken road shoulders and dikes. They also carry and can transmit diseases like leprosy. The 9-banded armadillo is not endangered, unlike the other species of armadillo; and in fact, their numbers continue to grow because they are sexually mature after one year, and females give birth to identical quadruplets every six months for the rest of their lives. While 90% of their diet is insects, the other 10% includes several crops, including peanuts, corn and cantaloupe.
As for the wild hogs… 5 or 6 per litter. Three litters every two years. Estimated $52 million in damages every year in Texas alone (and up to $1.5 billion annually in the U.S.) You have to “remove” about 60%-70% of the population every year just to keep the population stable. (That’s more than 750,000 a year in Texas alone.)
So, yeah, 99 is barely a drop in the bucket for these two species.
We really starting with the ‘not a drop in the bucket’ pest category? How about 99 ants? 99 mosquitoes… 99 termites… 99 KKK members… Actually, that last would be a public service!… 99 fleas…
Reminds me of something I saw on a sign outside a church:
“God makes nothing without purpose. Mosquitoes come close.”
Also, “Noah was a brave man to set sail on a wooden boat with two termites.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG_RA_IKO6g
I’m going to steal those!
I hope you are well stocked up on malaria treatments and do not have any wood in your house.
The question is, is the lives requirement a matter of energy or of sacrifice. If its a matter of energy needed to recharge the transformation effect then its possible that 99 is just how many humans it takes and you could make up the energy with a greater number of “smaller” lives.
But if its a sacrificial or ritualistic requirement then its probably 99 of what the holder views as lives. If you value hamsters or ants or whatever in the same way you do humans then the sacrifice is as meaningful to you (and thus the knife) and could meet the requirements.
If its an energy requirement though, I can see Deus having some sort of converter (scientific or artifact based) that would allow him to recharge the knife via an alternative method. Its the kind of character he is.
If it’s the ritualistic point, what about a villain that does not see humans as worthy enough to be alive? Would that villain simply be unable to charge the Epimorph?
If the sacrifice doesn’t mean anything to them, why should it be significant to the epimorph? Seems fair enough. You have to sacrifice something you actually value for that sacrifice to have meaning.
Actually a sacrifice only needs to have meaning to one of the two parties involved. So if the Epimorph desires the souls of people, for example, then how meaningful those are to the user are totally irrelevant. Barring if the individuals are moral or too squeamish to undertake the task.
Plus there is also the concept of substitute sacrifices. In Africa cattle were the traditional items sacrificed, as they were the high status symbols of wealth and the means of living. However in lean times it became acceptable to substitute something that represented cattle.
“This is to show that we would slaughter our precious cattle, if we had enough.”
Typically that was a cucumber. You can see the similarity.
Maybe it is the act of stabbing something that is considered ‘alive’ with the blade. Sciona could possibly do her blood magic to coat something simple like a bunch of balloons with living blood and then stab them all.
That way, we can solve the whole problem with 99 red balloons.
(If you are too young to get that joke, watch this). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14IRDDnEPR4
Now that brings back memories. Mostly good ones, but also one embarrassing one due to misheard song lyrics.
If that’s the case, simply stab the ground 99 times, the earth is alive… mostly
Noooo! Do not kill Mother Earth!
Sounds like Deus is going to run out of countries to liberate from warlords of things keep up. Lol
Always pirates and murderous mercenaries who “chase” people off their land. Working internationally there is no shortage of people he could kill to make himself look better to the locals, and further his own agendas without getting targeted by the good guys.
-think how the Punisher got away with blowing up a bar full of lesser supervillains.
God I so love Deus as a bad guy.
I feel like he’s the kind of bad guy who actually would visit a hospital because there’s a young boy who is very sick but one of the few members of his fan-club.
He’s…
He is Gru from despicable me.
But with more playboy mixed into it.
He is proof that villains can get fanclubs.
Gru is fulltime good guy now, his twin brother (but with luxurious hair) Dru is the villain now
Gru is never a “good guy” but is merely working for his own self interests.
You never saw the third movie then…
And you have it backwards anyway: he was never really a “bad guy”
Yep, he just thought he had to be as a way to prove himself to his mother and have fun.
If he was really a bad guy the Minions’ would have killed him at some point thanks to their subconscious drive to find the most evil individual, and then kill them “accidentally”…really this is what I got out of the Minions movie. Find big bad, and then end up killing them (subconsciously), but never Gru. They even killed that Yeti, the most evil guy at the villain-con, and would have crushed the villain of the movie to death if not for her armor.
His mother just wanted all the good things in life, without having to work or pay for them
All this time, I’d assumed Sciona was a vampire. Guess I made an ass of you and some guy named “Ume”.
“Umed” an automated medical bed. Either that or Achmed’s brother.
Achmed will kill you.
Umed already has.
Baymax needs you to be satisfied with your medical care.
and BetaMax still works, but it’s nearly impossible to find tapes for it
Especially since Sony finally stopped making Betamax tapes in March 2016.
Betamax never really caught on in the consumer market for any number of reasons I won’t bother to repeat here. (Anyone who is curious can look it up online, but the short version is that Sony underestimated the sophistication of North American customers, and also made it too expensive for other companies to license their format.)
For production and broadcast, though, Betamax is still a great product. It’s less expensive than digital tape and is a suitable medium for storage. Well, actually, they use Betacam… same tape, different format. Betamax is chroma-under-luma whereas Betacam is component video. Betacam sacrifices even more space (a 3-hour Betamax tape would only record 30 minutes of Betacam footage) in exchange for better resistance to generational loss and dropouts.
The last VHS manufacturer, Funai Electric (better known in America as Sanyo) stopped production of VHS machines just four months after Sony stopped making Betamax tapes. Though I’d imagine that someone will continue to produce blank VHS tapes for a few years to come. (Remember, it took Sony 14 years to stop making Betamax tapes after the last Betamax player rolled off the production line in 2002.)
it spreads if you break the column, good way to get around anyone with a Lina Inverse mindset of *I don’t want to climb the tower of doom to reach the treasure, let’s just blow up the tower and find what survived the collapse*
also 99 victims should be fairly easy a number given Deus operates internationally, enemy combatants alone, foreign prisons, ect… he could get that done under a week and no one would ever know he was involved and all off American soil so Arc would never get wind of it. (although if they could target mercenaries in South America, South East Asia, and Africa who are used to force and kill people off their native land for industries, he could get that number and make himself feel like he still being “sort of good”.
Yeah considering his work he (or his soldiers) have probably killed more than 99 people already this year just because he works in high-conflict areas.
let’s not forget assisted suicides, as well as african warlords, and terrorist groups. cthillia doesn’t even need to be the one killing though im sure for the 99th kill cthillia wants to be holding the epimorph. I am rather more surprised that the council left it in the vault fully charged (though maybe it naturally recharges and the lives thing is more time saving measure)
also 99 lives is a rather broad charging criteria, but then I guess thats why its in the vault, useful power and simple (if amoral) to recharge.
Seeing a lot of comments about the death field expanding, I doubt it would be infinitely expanding, and may even be designed to fill the inner chamber if one of the columns is destroyed by someone thinking that would be enough to turn it off. Even if just kept going, it likely has a power/range limit, the wider a range of any field, the more energy is required to sustain it, especially at any useable strength level. Why a magnet sitting on one side of a room doesn’t draw every piece of metal to it in the room like in a cartoon.
The other aspect is that the more it spreads out the weaker it probably gets. Although I imagine it remains deadly near the centre. But out towards the edges it might just become a bug zapper, then at the extremities a handy anti-bacterial field.
When the death field gets weaker then it only kills you a little bit?
Mmm, no. Or maybe. It would kill any of your external bacteria and may kill a layer of your outermost cells. But we regrow all those gradually anyhow, so it would not be particularly significant, other than stinging a bit.
I would not recommend staying in it for a prolonged period though, even if that is the way it works.
would anyone else laugh if the epimorph’s effects are only applicable to one person at a time so when cthillia gets it charged and uses it sciona goes back to her old “body” and that’s the reason the epimorph is in the vault cause once you use it you have to keep others from stealing it and using it.
He he. I suspect not, as they are obviously well informed about the vault and its contents. But it would be poetic justice if that fact had not been passed on to her by her vampire informers. Rather like Sciona was not bothered about using Wyrmil as a meat tunnel, they would not want to pass on any information to her which might discourage Sciona from conducting the heist. After all the only item they were interested in was the “Big Ol’ Book of Vampires”.
*wags tail ironically*
On the one hand I’m not a fan of the idea they’d lock something up for being dangerously defective in with all the crazy super-artifacts. Sounds like a bad joke that could end up making it end up with more focus than it needs.
On the other hand I do know a good example of a magic item that was locked away for being dangerously defective, but more so because the wizard who made it was embarrassed, but then raised all these legends like it was this super awesome item that could defeat armies.
(The Shadow Reflector) from Slayers Special. It could create a duplicate of anyone whose reflection it caught who possessed the exact opposite attributes of the person and obeyed the one who was holding the mirror…
however, while this sounds like (make a villain when facing a hero)…it also meant if the person was brave the copy would be a coward, and the copies of Lina and Naga had no will to fight…it was actually kind of funny because of meek and peace loving they were made the villain realize the “heroes” after him were basically psychopaths.
Mixing in cursed items with the useful ones is a time-honoured means of protecting places such as this. Any defenses can be overcome. But if your thief turns into a frog, before they escape, the problem resolves itself.