Book 2 – Page 69

[fjolnir]

Yep, it's a deadly duplicator reference. Good to know that Oss still thinks of himself as an honorable man, capable of nobility when we talk to him here, he's getting some very strong characterization for a lump of meat with dubious amounts of free will...

Spoiler: show

That category includes all of the main characters including our stupidworld hero.

[0beron]

Final question how long, as in time, has elapsed since the battle began? Back in book one after one hour the party in TV had gotten deadly serious are we near that point yet?

Well as the summer updates revealed, "time" in Erfworld is a bizarre and relative thing. Time does not pass uniformly across all hexes. So to answer your question as specifically as possible, Gobwin Knob moved into Jetstone's Airspace and an adjoining hex on their turn during the current day. Jillian then prematurely ended their turn, and we have since been in the Coalition's turn.

[BakaGrappler]

I like that Rob is validating the occurrences of the Text updates here (not just Artemis, but the plans of Slately doing berserk and the Dollamancer modifying all the gear the king has), and especially that Ossomer is having an actual outward sign of earnest emotion.

I mean, Ossomer is meant to be awesomer than other units around himself, and he's suddenly sidelined. He's going through inner turmoil all over the place, but now he's having some of that break out. It's nice.

And I also get the idea that the new Predatory Slately is a giant A-Hole.

And mentioning Text Updates, I have a link in my signature to a "What Text Updates do you want to see" thread. There is gonna be some stuff going down, for reals, and some of it will be very involved. Some of it will be better described through text than with pictures, despite the awesome illustration and coloring we have in the comic. What of that stuff do you want to see in text? Let Rob know in my thread!

[Kreistor]

I could have done without this page. The art is definitely cool, it doesn't convey any new information. We knew Slately was having his equipment enhanced. We knew they suspected the Tower would fall. It shows that in making these things, the casters don't use spell words. which is a little bit of Mechanics, but hardly worth the page. And we knew that Decrypted believe themselves self-aware.

If this page was omitted, no one would notice the loss.

[Pax]

I don't get the Three Quiet part...

It's even quieter than "too quiet), a.k.a. "two quiet".

[Pax]

If this page was omitted, no one would notice the loss.

Not every page has to be a home run. Sometimes, you want to load up the bases BEFORE knocking (another) one out of the park.

[stcredzero]

Ossomer's disquiet and distress is bound to lead up to *something*.

[Joe22c.]

So Artemis did something after all. Good. I liked her. She had spunk. (Also, Slately is about to be the most bamf jetpack-helmet-lightsaber(purportedly)-caped king to ever fly out of a collapsing castle being attacked by Dwagons ridden by Decrypted. In Layman's terms, he's a king whose also a boba fett jedi knight fighting dragons ridden by zombies who are attacking his castle. There aren't WORDS for that kind of awesome.)

And the artwork is, as usual, above-and-beyond.

Thanks for putting that into perspective haha

[Masennus]

Pierce doesn't seem very pleased with the current situation.

I wonder what the "tricky fooly stuff" will turn out to be.

A transfer "crown" and robes, suggests that someone else will play king with help of foolomancy (to defend the real king), but how will any sort of foolomancy work against archons?

I read it as "We are enchanting these two items for defense. I will make the cloak physical defense. You make the hat mental defense."

One against Archons' shockamancy, the other against their foolamancy.

[EarwaxRock]

I could have done without this page.

I totally agree, but every time I've thought that about a page I get on the forums and find there's so much deep meaning that I missed.

If this page was omitted, no one would notice the loss.

I think that if I were reading this story in finished form rather than being fed it slowly page by page I would be a lot less prone to wonder about the value of each individual one. I know I'm not usually thinking that as I read a book or something.

As far as this page goes, though, I do like the "show, don't tell" approach to all these things we've already seen. We needed the text updates to understand the full meaning of what's going on here, but now that we have all that set-up, something might actually happen! Yay!

how long, as in time, has elapsed since the battle began?

I hear that. I'm about ready for time to start moving forward again.

[Hayes]

"Three Quiet" is because Sylvia was hitting the tower in volleys of three, and her third BOOM of that volley was interrupted by Artemis's attack. It's supposed to depict the absence of the BOOM that everyone in the tower was expecting to come, which is why Slately wonders if they have stopped. By the end of the page, Sylvia has started the next volley.

I think we are learning not only that the Decrypted think of themselves as self-aware, but that they also have enough freedom to think of the word Noble with a capital letter, even though they are supposed to worship the Pliers.....I'm still wondering what the explanation for that freedom will be, since it seems pretty lacking in everyone else besides Ossomer...

[Syal]

If this page was omitted, no one would notice the loss.

You'd probably miss it when Slately flies through enemy territory and they don't attack. That's what it's setting up.

[Kreistor]

If this page was omitted, no one would notice the loss.

Not every page has to be a home run. Sometimes, you want to load up the bases BEFORE knocking (another) one out of the park.

My point is that no new bases were loaded. At best we were shown a fake to pick off the guy at third, to force him to shorten his lead. At worst, the pitcher stepped off the rubber to reset.

Robert Jordan got really bad at this in Wheel of Time. Giving us constant updates of people (he was following far too many) that didn't wind up doing more than tell us, "He's still alive and working on that problem, but he hasn't solved it yet. But hey, he did get drunk once!" All but taking 1/2 a book to do it.He could have just written the whole thing in a paragraph. Even Jordan admitted that he had blown it, but then he died, so... the point is, in a long haul project, don't slow the pace to update a plot issue that hasn't changed, because you don't know how much time you've got to finish the project.

You'd probably miss it when Slately flies through enemy territory and they don't attack. That's what it's setting up.

Who is "they" that don't attack? The archons? The Archons aren't under Ossomer's command at the moment, and can verify orders via their own Thinkamancy, if he decides to try to take them over. Slately's plan is to attack the Archons anyway, to gain the cash to raise Tramennis to heir, not escape. Ossomer's doubt wasn't new in this comic, either... he revealed that in-depth in the text updates, so that he may resist Wanda is also not new to this comic. The pliers clearly haven't turned everyone into a copy of ansom with his motivations twisted... Sylvia doesn't dwell on her loyalty and purpose at all. Ossomer seems to have purpose, but lacks the conviction of rightness that Ansom developed. How much of Ansom's worship of Toolism is merely Ansom's own rationalization vs. how much is the Arkentool's change to him during Decryption? Probably more is rationalization than many think.

[the_tick_rules]

They are still talking to Ossomer?

[Sojiko]

Yay, finally back to the battle!

Of course it has to happen right before we reach the resolution in the Magic Kingdom, for maximum suspense value ...

[Fishman]

I liked the way the "noble sacrifice" to halt the siege utimately amounts to nothing at the end, with the resuming of the BOOM. Shows what "noble" really is about: Futile, wasteful, and illogical.

[Lamech]

Wait! I thought that Parson didn't want a repeat of Unaroyal. For the obvious reason of disbanding is bad, and costs GK potential units. Ossomer could totally conclude that the king is NOT a target of choice. And if the archons contact Parson for orders he'll say "take casters don't croak the king." I bet Ossomer can do both of his conflicting motives. Both protecting his father, and helping GK.

[HandofShadows]

And I also get the idea that the new Predatory Slately is a giant A-Hole.

In other words, he really has not changed all that much.

[kreszantas]

I could have done without this page. The art is definitely cool, it doesn't convey any new information. We knew Slately was having his equipment enhanced. We knew they suspected the Tower would fall. It shows that in making these things, the casters don't use spell words. which is a little bit of Mechanics, but hardly worth the page. And we knew that Decrypted believe themselves self-aware.

If this page was omitted, no one would notice the loss.

Kreistor quit being such a dufus, there was so much in this page that you missed, like why did Stately even need to ask "the puppet" about what happened in the first place. He is so out of touch he didn't even notice that his own units croaked in battle. Stanley was keenly aware when Parson made his leap into the magic kingdom, a ruler knows where his units are but Stately didn't even comprehend the act of valor. That was his escape window and he missed it. Without the text updates than this page would be meaningful in its entirety as it fills in gaps that most may not have seen or read. I personally liked it so much more when you stayed in the darkness not posting useless babble, just to be the anti fanboy.

[Sojiko]

This page does pretty much nothing but establish the "text updates continuity" into comic form. This is important because the story is supposed to be followable by reading nothing but the comic. This update was mandatory, if you have a complaint about lack of content, direct it at the fact that plot-relevant events are disclosed in text updates before coming up in the comic.

There are a couple of interesting subtleties here, like showing the result of Artemis's gambit with "three quiet" replacing the third shock, and a comment on nobility (which only amount to a skipped "boom" in the end"). It shows part of what the dollamancer are doing, before we only knew they were to do something now we know it includes protection against the archons' magic (shockamancy and foolamancy at least).
So it's not entirely pointless for those who followed the text updates, even if it is not advancing the plot much at all.