I was actually expecting Wanda to be a little more complicit in the downfall of Faq.
Also, I am chagrined that I did not see that particular hammer dancefighting joke coming.
Isn’t Stanley’s role in the downfall of Faq the whole reason that Jillian hates him? And doesn’t she love Wanda? I could see her not reacting well when she finds out what we just learned (or that Ansom is now serving Wanda and/or Stanley).
If she expected Stanley to lose the battle and leave her in possession of the Arkenhammer, it would explain why Loyalty and Duty didn’t stand in the way of double-dealing – in her estimation, she would actually be benefiting her King by luring in a beatable enemy with an Arkentool in his possession. Boop, if she’d convinced herself of that, Duty might have even driven her actions.
(Also, link to the update on the Erfworld site, which seems to be handling the traffic better than the GitP site.)
So is Wanda still loyal to Stanley now that she’s got her own Tool and Army? I’m thinking yes, since she seemed to be saying that Ansom is Parson’s minion. I mean, she wouldn’t resurrect a whole army for Stanley if she was planning to turn on him, would she? I guess I just wonder what her end-game is.
According to Wanda, she is loyal to Fate Magic. It’s perfectly plausible that she sees Stanley’s intellectual shortcomings as rendering him unfit to lead a coalition of attuned Arkentool wielders.
Were she to croak and decrypt him, I wonder if he would remain attuned to the Arkenhammer. It might be necessary to test that hypothesis on the wielder of the fourth Arkentool.
Damn. This comic just keeps getting better and better…
I been thinkin’.
Let us, for the sake of argument, assume that conquest and assimilation of other cities is going to be a goal (early on, it’s mentioned that Stanley had had, and then lost, several other cities). If so, I’m wondering how really loyal the new and improved Ansom is?
Because if he’d do anything for Parson/Stanley, one logical ploy would be to send him back to whatever the capital of Jetstone is (Jetstone?) pretending to have escaped the carnage for some vaguely plausible reason. Sure, he was reported dead - but here he is, large as life and definitely not uncroaked and rotting. Huzzah! The prodigal son returneth!
So Ansom gets a private moment with King Daddy and at a key point does the stabbity thing. And what happens next? Ansom is almost certainly the heir apparent. If a decrypted Ansom can inherit, suddenly he’s ruling the city/cities. If not, they fall and revert to barbarism (unless there’s another heir-in-waiting we don’t know about). Either way, Parson sweeps up.
Does that make sense? Or do I just need a life?
Hmmm… an interesting possibility, especially considering that Ansom v2.0 has declared that he considers Parson’s anti-royalty taunts from earlier to be the Titans’ Own Truth…
New Erfworld (not updated at erfworld.com yet).
Parson gets a little character growth.
And manages to bypass the filters, you’ll notice.
In throwing away the sword, he lost a piece of what made him the Perfect Warlord by Erfworld’s standards. But if he can willpower his way through the ‘game’ rules, that might make him even stronger than otherwise. Hm.
What he seems to have given up is Ruthlessness. Be interesting to see how that works out for him.
'Cos, as Maggie said, he’s still a remarkable warrior.
He’s declared himself a player, not a character. In doing so, he seems to have gotten around the rules being imposed on him by the world. I wonder how much else he’ll be able to do.
“How did you do that?”
“I’m what you guys call a user.”
Interesting analogy…
Another thing. Lord Hamster’s a Hippiemancer. He’s getting rid of Ruthlessness. How much Ruthlessness does a Hippiemancer need?
You didn’t notice the parallel? He even got the position right. I thought it was pretty obvious this was a Tron story.
Actually, he’s giving up:
Leadership!
Combat!
Ruthlessness!
It was a 3-in-1 sword. On his own, Parson has a pretty poor Warlord bonus, remember, so it probably boosted him quite a bit – he’d mentioned that Wanda’s and his bonuses were going to turn the courtyard into a meat grinder.
If it happens often enough, it’ll do as an update.