But I think Nale has truly been seen for the last time, unless we catch a glimpse of him in hell with Sabine at some point. Like Miko, his arc is complete and his purpose in the story has been fulfilled. The dangling story threads are being tied up so that we can move on to the final gate and final conflict. There’s still plenty left to do with Xykon, Redcloak, the Creature in the Darkness, the fiends and their hold over V, the mystery about what is really in the Snarl, etc.
And can I just say how fantastic Rich’s writing pace has been lately? I expect that there aren’t many more comics left between now and the end of this book, and then we’ll have a hiatus, but I’ve really been on the edge of my seat for the past several weeks. Keep this man supplied with coffee!
If you’ll think back a year and a half (or earlier today in strip time) Elan came up with some secret plan for fighting his father. It occurs to me that we might now see this plan revealed.
It appears the soldiers are vanishing in the background. They could just be obscured by dust and blowing sand, but that would be an unnecessary confusing detail.
The soldiers are real. Obviously I can’t prove it but the one ran to Tarquin with an unnecessary plot reveal and their purpose was to secure the gate which works better with real people. Also, Tarquin HAS an army (and dinosaurs) so why bother having his psion open a wormhole just to march through an illusionary army? That’s like me making a styrofoam and paint mock-up of my car to put in my driveway and impress the neighbors while my real car sits in the garage.
The next in a series of questionable WAGs: Sabine wants to go stomp Tarquin as soon as she can leave the plane but is reined in by the fiends. At some suitably dramatic point in the next (or, even better, the last) book, once the fiends’ plan has been revealed and presumably defeated and she has free rein again, Tarquin will pay for this. Bonus narrative points if Sabine destroys him at the cost of her own life/existence/whatever succubi have, thus wrapping up that arc neatly.
The question is “how?” She can’t really use her shapeshifting, since Tarquin has the Ring of True Seeing. She’s CR7, so she’s toast in a straight up fight. (I imagine she’s actually a templated rogue or something, but still, I would be unsurprised if Tarquin could one shot her).
I’m thinking a suicide bomber attack with several dozen acorn grenades (courtesy of a friendly evil druid casting Fire Seeds, but I imagine there are better ways to suicide kill someone several levels above you.
A high level psion is going to effectively immune to just about anything that requires a will save, so probably not her. But there are a ton of other people around Tarquin she could manipulate against him, if she was careful about it. I don’t know if she has the patience for that, though.
It’d probably be easier to charm Tarquin, what with a Psion’s Will saves being on par with a Cleric’s. Then again, the DC for a Succubus’s Charm attack is Charisma based and other than Xykon, Tarq’s probably the most Charismatic character in the strip. I like the thought of Sabine shapeshifting to Amun-Zora and energy draining Tarquin into oblivion, but I don’t see mechanically how that could be plausible.
Why would the Order take her? I mean, if V vouches for her, I guess it’s possible? I wonder what will come of V being witness to all of this?
The save DC being charisma based refers to the caster’s charisma, not the target. Tarquin’s high charisma doesn’t make him any more or less susceptible to Sabine’s magic.
The “how” is too early to guess but dramatic convention suggests a fight between Elan and Tarquin; Elan wins but spares his life only to have Sabine turn up (“DUN DUN DUUUUUUN!!”) and administer a coup de grace to the greatly-weakened Tarquin. Or indeed Tarquin wins and Sabine appears and stabs him in the back before he can finish off Elan. Or something.
Of course, my guesses have been wrong far more often than right so for all I know Tarquin will trip over a rock in the next strip, fall into the rift and drown.
I’m puzzled about the meaning of this strip’s title, ‘Last in the Coffin.’ All I can think of is continuing it to make: ‘last in the coffin’s a rotten egg,’ but that makes exactly zero sense. Huh. Anyone?
That’s my thought. Durkon has extenuating circumstances on his side but Sabine is just an evil netherworld critter. Also, Hayley hates her – enough that Sabine supplanted Crystal in the Nemesis department.
Maybe… maybe if Sabine’s aid was somehow necessary for securing the last Gate. But taking down Tarquin is a secondary goal at best and I can’t see the Order joining with her for the B-plot.