Order of the Stick - Book 6 Discussion Thread

I was wondering if the other Vampire’s complaint that he is having compulsions along the lines of his host’s natural tendencies will give Durkon any ideas for resistance, but decided that his body snatcher is probably stronger, and has overcome any inconvenient impulses already.

In the previous strip, when Durkula asks for a “useful memory,” Durkon replies, “Aye. Thar’s definitely a use for it.”

I’m not sure what he means, but it read to me like he’s up to something. Am I misunderstanding?

It still gives Durkon confirmation that the struggle goes both ways.

The comment about teaching is also interesting. I wonder what that’s about.

I’m just guessing here. Durkula wanted to see a memory from Durkon of what the inside of the temple looked like. Durkon showed him one, supposedly with reluctance.

The memory we saw was of Durkon’s initiation. The Temple was presumably full for the ceremony. Durkon may have shown this particular memory to conceal the reality that the Temple is generally unstaffed and defenseless.

Or perhaps it’s not generally warded, though I wouldn’t guess why not.

I think it’s almost certain that “Aye, thar’s definitely a use for it” means that the use was for deceiving the vampire. The details of that deception, we don’t know yet, but we probably will soon.

My first guess was that, while there were wards in there before, there aren’t now. But that seems a bit too basic for this second strip. It seems that Durkon is actually using his memories to influence Durkula. Notice how Durkula now is agreeing with the whole “not have anything to learn” idea?

Since when would Durkula care about Durkon learning from him, when he’s so sure that Durkon is going to cease to exist soon?

If Durkula is just Durkon on his worst day, then maybe Durkon can use his memories to reform him, the same way his experiences of those memories kept him from remaining that same person.

1088 Hall Past

So, if the dining hall is where they serve beer, and Thor likes beer . . . is the dining hall more holy than the temple? Just as holy?

Maybe holy and sunny?

The dining hall is where the serve food. Every room is where they serve beer :slight_smile:

Well that’s pretty obvious. It’s a true memory, all right: The banquet hall is there, and looks just like that, and so on. But nothing in that memory suggests that it’s secluded.

Yllaria, this is dwarven lands. Everywhere is where they serve beer.

Dwarfs live underground. Not much sun there.

I stand corrected. Your words are wise.

Where there’s beer, there’s sunshine.

Durkon is hammering on that “couldn’t show you a false memory” a little too hard. So, what is his trick? Tune in next time and find out.

Well, there’s the possibility that the dining hall was behind the door they were trying to open and Durkon is now tricking them into heading for the warded Temple. Both memories would be correct but used in the wrong context to mislead.

But the temple door as locked with the key stone. I doubt they’d lock the dining hall the same way.

Probably not, although we haven’t seen the dining hall door.

I agree with **Gyrate **that he’s probably planning to be misleading my showing only specific memories.

But we also have interesting possibilities like remembering a dream, or remembering a hallucination (either magic-induced or when someone fed him those funny colored mushrooms), or remembering two unrelated memories in short sequence to make them appear related.

Durkon is also aware that Durkula doesn’t understand a lot of things like dwarven emotions, or relationships, so he can show him things that really happened, but that the vampire doesn’t have context for, so the vampire will draw incorrect conclusions.

Here’s a question: Can the vampire access the memories that real-Durkon is forming post-vampirization? Can he order Durkon “Show me all your memories of your attempts to thwart me”?