Well spotted.
Love the calling the bluff dialogue.
Yeah, it was basically a high level rogue duel. None of this sweaty Sneak Attack business, just pure bluffing and calling.
I’m not sure that Serini’s strategy would work, even if she wasn’t bluffing.
She says a vial would erase one week’s worth of memories. One DND vial is 4 ounces.
One swallow of the liquid, let’s say a cup (8 ounces), would erase 2 weeks, but Serini would also forget why she was in the cauldron in the first place, and most likely try to get out.
Even if she drank as much as her stomach could hold it would not be enough. A human stomach can hold around a gallon (128 ounces); a halfling’s probably half that. At most she would lose around 4 months of memories.
Re the last panel: In Soviet Russia OotSverse, shark jumps you!
Halflings aren’t small people, they’re halflings. I think they’re 70% stomach 
We boggies are a hairy folk
Who like to eat until we choke
Loving all like friend and brother,
Hardly ever eat each other!
“…and several bowls of artificial fruit which couldn’t have been mistaken for the real thing at fifty meters. These Pepsi and Moxie immediately ate.”
Even in-universe, Belkar has already commented on how halflings aren’t proportioned like humans.
Oh, and I think I might be falling (even more) in love with Lien.
Heh. Pokeball shark.
Also, it continues to be no surprise that Haley keeps getting mistaken for the leader of the group, as she more and more is.
Lien rocks! Lawful Good, not Lawful Stupid.
I know vial are traditionally ingested, but possibly skin contact would have a lesser effect (cite:Nethack thrown potions)?
Plus, a one-cup vial seems really large (but even at one ounce, swallowing enough to erase decades of memories would be a heavy lift).
You guys are all assuming that the relationship between quantity consumed and the length of memory wiped is linear…
She’s always been the second-in-command, at least in her own mind; it’s just that she’s finally starting to act like it.
The vials are 4 ounces (just under half a cup). Or at least that’s what it says when you google “DND vial size”.
The cup is more about how much you could swallow before the potion starting taking effect - at which point you would presumably stop deliberately swallowing any more.
As for the total amount of liquid in the cauldron: Assuming Serini is a halfling of average height (3feet / 90cm), I’d estimate the cauldron to be a (very rough) sphere of around 48cm in radius, containing some 15,500 ounces - enough for 3900 doses or 75 years of amnesia.
Spread between Oots and the paladins, that’s 8 years of memory loss per person. Kind of overkill really.
Well, she stepped up fine when Roy was dead. Roy even complimented her on it afterward. I don’t think there’s any question that Roy would consider her his second in command. Besides, she’s the only one with a combination of quick thought and common sense. V lacks snap judgement and leadership, Durkon is a follower practically to a fault and Elan & Belkar speak for themselves.
Roy is the strategic thinker; Haley, the tactical genius.
IIRC she became second in command in On The Origin Of PCs by telling Roy something like “As your second in command, I think -” which was a surprise to Roy at the time.
Actually that’s a pretty fitting way for a rogue to become second in command, though…
It’s not just that she’s a quick and sharp thinker (though she is). It’s that this exact sort of scenario is where her thinking is quickest and sharpest. She’s always been the best at trickery and counter-trickery and false trickery and multi-level meta-trickery, and Roy has consistently recognized and relied on her for that.