Book 2 – Text Updates 052

[balder]

New One is up.

[mcw0933]

Wow, I was on the edge of my seat with this one.

Even if Artemis really was just some fan service for us to get to this fight with Sylvia - thank you Rob! But if she comes back, even better.

[MedPig]

Nicely done. I liked the resolution to this, and it clears the way for Lord Hamster to raise some Hell...

[TheTuna]

Great update! Can't wait to see Artemis as a Decrypted. Should be badass.

[Pepster]

Protection from arrows, must be chagemaancy, or some oddd form of dittomancy.

Or a railroad GM.

[Ouze]

kick-ass story. Best in a while. I hope we see Artemis again, but wearing the right colors.

[gameboy1234]

Fun stuff. It looks like Captain Archer will soon have a buddy to shoot with.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Vurp! NOOOOOOOOOO!

Wow. Weee. Whoah. Yowzer. Gosh.

Well, for one thing, this update had, so far, the biggest concentration of tactics in like ever. Of course, Parson's the bright one with that, but his entries are more like awesome tricks and the baffled reaction. This was move counter move counter-counter etc. So this is what a typical Erf battle looks like between high-lev. units.

Quite awesome. Also, lest people comment on the propensity of arrows for being deflected out of their intended path, that had Archer got his shot, he stood a good chance to continue the siege undisturbed. Indeed, Sylvia was considering this as a tactical possibility and offered herself as a distracting target, later. Said distraction including a BOOM-blast from her Dwagon.

So yeah. Yowzer. Wow. OMG.

Vuuuuuurrppp!

PS: don't worry about Slately. Aww yeah, the ol' guy is going to pull some rocket-awesome soon enough. You go grrl!

In fact, I foresee a loaded Slately chucking grenades and chewing Dwagon gum slowly departing from the burning ruins of Spacerock with Wanda's still beating heart in one of his hands. "Home is where your heart is" he'd say as he puts on sunglasses and chucks the heart in the fire, " in HELL!"

[lodo_bear]

Protection from arrows, must be chagemaancy, or some oddd form of dittomancy.

Or a railroad GM.

My money's on a railroad GM. Or more accurately, a railroad Titan. The odds on these shots are too good, and I get the feeling that Rob wants us to know that. The Titans want Gobwin Knob to win this one. Fate is, indeed, on Wanda's side.

Which is why it is my fervent hope that Parson, armed with Jojo's scroll, will find some way to fight Fate, and win.

[mcw0933]

Is it possible Artemis had some kind of anti-luckamancy special applied to her without her knowledge?

I agree that we're supposed to realize the improbability of it all, but I'm not sure I believe that the Titans are responsible.

[Morak]

My money's on a railroad GM. Or more accurately, a railroad Titan. The odds on these shots are too good, and I get the feeling that Rob wants us to know that. The Titans want Gobwin Knob to win this one. Fate is, indeed, on Wanda's side.

To quote Elwood Blues: "We're on a mission from God."

[msb]

The tactics were pretty awesome.

But this seems like a ridiculous amount of luck/fate. I don't get it. I'll just remain confused for now and hope that some sort of more specific mechanism than just "it's fate" explains all this. It's kind of gone beyond the point where we can just interpret it as Wanda and the decrypted having a religious zeal about their chances and success. It seems like sort of magical interference really *is* going on.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Protection from arrows, must be chagemaancy, or some oddd form of dittomancy.

Or a railroad GM.

My money's on a railroad GM. Or more accurately, a railroad Titan. The odds on these shots are too good, and I get the feeling that Rob wants us to know that. The Titans want Gobwin Knob to win this one. Fate is, indeed, on Wanda's side.

Which is why it is my fervent hope that Parson, armed with Jojo's scroll, will find some way to fight Fate, and win.

Hmm, cool idea. Would we then finally see Wanda become an antagonist to Parson?

A while ago, someone asked what would the last battle of the chapter be, in the Other Things forum. Jokingly, I said it would be Scarlett vs. Parson, for Jack's life. See, Parson is too valuable to risk losing to decryption, but a Foolamancer caster, who Wanda wanted to decrypt some time ago anyway? Come 'ere, it won't hurt one bit, Jack.

It seems like sort of magical interference really *is* going on.

It's Marie! Or some kind of Carnymancy.

No, wait, it's The Fish Called Wanda, seeking revenge from the great beyond.

[Ninjaguineapig]

Nothing's going well for Jetstone, is it? Looks like the Titans are really getting involved. Maybe to help GK get back on top after Kingworld?
Is it just me, or are these archer warlords getting a lot of crits? Maybe that's something that goes up with level as well.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Well, one crit from an Archer started this story way back when.

And started a meme which is alive to this day. Pie anyone? Not just any pie though.

[halftea]

I might be wrong, but I think its likely that it's Fud or one of his compatriots (From LIAB Text 39) rather than Vurp. Although it could still be Vurp...

[Balerion]

It seems to me like we are being set up to expect that there is a flaw in the plan of the GMTTA, that it is being taken advantage of by Fate in ways they will not expect. Fate/Titans/whatever is clearly going along with the GK forces, which would seem to support the efforts of GMTTA. JoJo also specifically was against the plans of Fate, not expressing any malice whatsoever towards GK. So, tinfoil hat time:

Spoiler: show

A story where you know which side the Titans have decreed to be victorious, and that side is the side you want to be victorious, is boring. At some point in the future, the problems with the Fated plan will become clear. At that point, Parson will end up teaming with JoJo (assuming he hasn't died showing the problems with Fate's plans) or whoever else the opposite numbers are (perhaps even Charlie, though I find that unlikely) to try and stop the steamroller he himself helped establish. The dream of halting war on Erf is either proven to be impossible, or it has to be achieved over the bodies of the Titans themselves.

The reason the Titans allowed Parson to be summoned is that they needed Wanda to get the pliers, and there was no other way for her to survive that encounter and have Ansom killed. The fact that she was supposed to get the pliers specifically, and not another tool, is shown to us by how Stanely encountered something like 30 dragons on his trip to Faq, clearly the hand of the Titans at work to keep him with the Hammer. Given that JoJo wants Parson off the board, we can assume Parson will be necessary at least an additional time in order for the Titans will to be accomplished. But, he is a wild card as well; the secondary plan, bar simply clearing him from the board, is to attempt to turn him, or at least plant the seeds of a desire for free will in his mind.

Charlie still seems to be in the dark about too much (like what exactly decryption is) for me to think he is a fully informed player in these plans; my thought is that he is currently a pawn on the board,and he knows it, hence his recent desperation tactics (for him at least; clearly, he still has a lot of power on the field) to nip all this in the bud. After all, if Wanda is right that all the tools have to be brought together.... Charlie has to know that Fate is not likely to be kind to him when that time comes.

end of tinfoil hat

[DyolfKnip]

This really does demonstrate the sheer combat force high-level units can deliver. Those dozen knights took out 3 green (in both senses) dwagons in seconds without so much as getting their hair mussed. But the usual Erfworld questions of economics come into play. Either it takes so long to train them to that level that it might have been cheaper just to go for quantity over quality, or you have to engage in so much combat for them to get the XP, you're basically sacrificing the majority of your units' lives for increasingly expensive gains for a minority.

I wonder if Parson is thinking up ways to provide combat-like leveling speed that doesn't require actual combat to get it? Imagine fielding whole armies of SAS, SEALs, and Rangews? What exactly did Artemis' "training" consist of? Perhaps large-scale wargames with friendly or allied units would do more?

[BLANDCorporatio]

Indeed, if Parson had discussed that with Artemis, he'd have gotten some interesting ideas.

About levelling- alas, looking at Stupidworld games (which, remember, Erfworld resembles) shows things are all over the map.

The common thread is that levelling is expensive. It takes a lot of effort, clever tactics, luck ... or save-scumming, let's be honest ... to bring a unit to high levels. Once that happens though, said unit can be anywhere from marginally more powerful (can't think of an example) to reasonably more powerful (RA3, Disciples) to Godawfully broken (AoW1; Disciples' Wraith branch?).

[JustDoug]

I really enjoyed this one, not only for the tale it told, but for the additional insight into Erf's natural laws masquerading as game rules (or vice versa). I could almost hear the dice being rolled. I could hear the muttered, disbelieving curse when the expected rolls of two or better yielding a hit went south as the Fate Roll Modifier of -5 went into effect.

A good 'un, all around.