The Order of the Stick

I really liked the potion sellers who sold for less than the cost to make potions. They were really helpful merchants! Not on purpose, but they still were!

And at least V tried to help them, but once they got to higher levels of stupidity, they gave up and just bought a bunch of stuff.

You've got to wonder how they even got to the point of owning a shop...

They're probably selling SOMETHING ELSE at a profit. Reminds me of the hippie chemist in 1632 which practically gives away the meds for free but makes a lot of money with his dyes.

Probably adventured for the starting capital and levels for crafting feats.

Putting skill points in commerce at level ups evidently eluded them.

edited 11th Nov '14 10:07:30 PM by Marcach

^^ Tom Stone wasn't an idiot, though, and was knowingly selling the medicines at cost for moral reasons.

If anything, I'd think those idiots were given positions in a store actually owned by someone else because of some variety of favoritism, or they just recently inherited it from relatives who died not too long before that strip.

Isn't Polearm troll, Haley's cousin?

Yes.

Is Nale's ultimate fate ever going to be established? We know he's dead, but what happened to him next? Did Sabine manage to acquire his soul before it could get processed into a Lemure or whatever? Will she now spend eternity knowing the mortal she loved is gone forever? Will she work behind the scenes to aid the Lower Realm Being made from his soul, hoping to spark some kernel of memory deep within it?

I don't think it's important. He won't be coming back to the story and that's what counts. Sabine probably will come back though, probably as the IFCC's pawn. The more interesting thing is Thog's fate. Did he survive? If no, he probably won't be rezzed. If yes, what will happen? Will Tarquin use him for his own purposes or will he become a lone avenger against the Order?

Nale is Lawful. Sabine is a Chaotic entity. She is from a different Hell than the one Nale is going to, and for her to ever see him again without being immediately slaughtered herself for being in the wrong place would take a complicated manipulation of relationships and mechanics that have never been established to be capable of such manipulation in the first place.

Unless Rich shows us otherwise, Nale died, went to the Lawful Evil hell, and will never be seen or heard from again.

edited 12th Nov '14 7:56:59 AM by TobiasDrake

I think the idea is that due to the relationship between the Fiends, if they wanted to, they probably could pull some strings to have Nale preserved in some fashion. Of course, there is the question of whether they would want or care to- they seemed to be going the Villainous Demotivator route toward Sabine.

Because I felt sympathy toward Nale, I'd like to see him get a happy ending of sorts, and have him retain his consciousness and be reunited with Sabine. However, I have some doubts that that is the kind of story Burlew wants to tell.

edited 12th Nov '14 8:02:18 AM by Hodor

Yes, that is the idea, and even ignoring the fact that they have no motivation to do so, there is no evidence they even could. The idea that the IFCC is capable of plucking a soul out, giving him a broom, and making him the new janitor is pure fanon in the first place.

Any theory on how Nale might not be chilling in his alignment-appropriate afterlife for the rest of eternity is over-reliant on things that have never been established and only "make sense" to some fans that it might be so.

edited 12th Nov '14 8:04:22 AM by TobiasDrake

But owning Nale is a great carrot-and-stick in one package. Give him to her? She'll be as eternally grateful as a demon can be. Remind her that you can take him away? Now she'll also fear you just as much.

Yeah, Sabine would be completely unable to get into Hell if she were working for anyone but her current employers.

Why is it such a stretch (In a Watsonian sense) that the IFCC might have Nale? They represent all three Evil alignments between them, and we saw them manning a huge in-tray collecting souls from the very battle in the middle of which Nale died. Maybe they were only getting a random cut of those souls, or maybe they declared a specific interest in that conflict, or maybe they were in one of their planes at the time and collecting only those souls, or maybe they have some usual system but have a chance to dibs certain souls that look useful to their plans — it seems equally speculative to assume any way. It would not be at all out of the blue for us to learn in the next strip that Nale dropped straight into their laps. I certainly don't think it's Epileptic Trees territory.

I'd be somewhat surprised if he were never even mentioned again, partly out of the What Happened to the Mouse? principle (yeah, "he's dead", but his girlfriend has a pass for the Revolving Door, so a confirmation would be nice), and partly because they seemed to be setting up something with Sabine vs Tarquin and Nale's fate would matter as a motivation for her.

I certainly don't think he's coming back, it would be shoddy storytelling, but I wouldn't be surprised if the IFCC kept his soul on the hook to manipulate Sabine.

edited 12th Nov '14 7:31:38 PM by johnnye

There's no reason to retrieve Nale because Sabine's loyalty isn't in question. They don't need to give her any more bait.

She's a chaotic demon. Loyalty is never not in question for those.

For instance, she still might to try escaping their grasp in order to focus on revenge on Tarquin.

edited 12th Nov '14 8:54:54 PM by Adannor

She already had the archfriends at a higher priority than Nale.

I also never got the impression that she was particularly important to the IFCC. She's another pawn among many, and if she rebels in any way then they can simply cut their losses and use a new pawn. Going out of the way to bend the rules of Hell for her strikes me as more effort than they'd think it's worth, even if they technically can.

edited 13th Nov '14 12:37:05 AM by Clarste

Still, it might suit them to do so at some point. They're all a very pragmatic variety of Evil, and they should be able to see that motivating underlings with a carrot as well as a stick sometimes could be smart strategy.

^ And monkeys might fly out of my butt, too.

Seriously, there's no reason for them to give two squirts of warm pee about Nale, and if they lose Sabine it's not an irrecoverable loss. Narratively Nate's job is concluded, and bringing him back would serve no real purpose in the storyline other than to stretch it out even further.

edited 13th Nov '14 5:58:20 AM by Nohbody

New comic! Poor gnomes.

Well, I guess that proves one thing: the way vampires work is known, but only with specific Knowledge: Religion checks that no one but Durkon would reasonably be capable of making.

The gnome cleric knew it. Durkula dominated him halfway through explaining it.

It does raise the question of why he didn't come after Roy and try again once the domination wore off, though.

Side note, that gnome cleric with the ponytail and freckles is adorable.