El Goonish Shive

Magus, perhaps you shouldn't hint to your Lawful Evil companion that he just accidentally stumbled on a cache of just repowered weapons to sell on the black market. I know you need to survive this arc so you can help the main cast learn about the recently reactivated forms of magic, but try not to be stupid about it.

It's not like he knows it either. They don't know magic has changed. That said, it hadn't clicked for me until just now either that this place was filled with "useless and inert" magical artifacts.

Pretty much my reaction.

edited 9th Mar '18 6:55:37 AM by sgamer82

...OH.

I was displeased with the lack of a dramatically-appropriate whammy when Magic made its decree. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop and instead that was just the end of the scene and we came back to these guys.

Credit where it's due. This is the other shoe. It did happen, just not in that scene.

Oh DUH.

Ok that's legit clever. The execution is a bit eh but that's a neat idea in and of itself. We'll see if this was meant to be a one page reveal or a multi page reveal monday I guess.

edited 9th Mar '18 10:37:49 AM by MrAHR

Fairly sure it'll be multi-page, though not necessarily consecutive. Also, I have to wonder if, with Ashley being there, what are the odds that she'll wind up Taking the Bullet for Magus?

While it might be out of character for Susan to act like that, that's a great gag.

edited 9th Mar '18 8:21:23 PM by ironballs16

NP 741

He's right, it is often a trap.

The point about things that didn't use to work starting to work again is an important likelihood, and one that's likely correct in at least part, but I can think of another possibility.

Namely, that vault isn't as unguarded as Magus and Sirleck think. And maybe one or more of those auras isn't attached to something so much as someone. Or multiple someones.

I mean, we already know that beings can have magic-based suspended animation (hey, Abraham... by the way, still can totally see you making an appearance here, too). What if one of those "artifacts" is in fact a person who was put in suspension until magic took on a certain characteristic - one that just happened?

Side note: it also might be worth asking what the nature of Sirleck's transformation and possession powers are. Because if it's magic-based (and certainly, past suggestion has been that it is), wouldn't that make Ellen also potentially affected by the Dewitchery Diamond? If so, would that trap Sirleck into an Ellen-clone? Would that make Sirleck's base form be Ellen? Would it just expel Sirleck from Ellen's body (that one would probably be the best case scenario for the heroes)? I mean, this could just be all moot by just never having Sirleck-in-Ellen never touch the dang thing, but it seems like that possibility is just as much in play.

Hey, that's pretty clever.

New strip up, and I'll admit, I did not pick up on the "Lights are on and nobody's home" nature last time.

Sometime in the next few pages this is going to turn into a massive clusterfuck. I have to wonder if this building will remain standing.

The lack of a vehicle doesn't sway me so much - giving the appearance of nobody being around when there actually is staff around (maybe they took alternate transportation, or maybe there's an underground parking lot - hey, my workplace has one) would be a pretty big temptation.

That said, yeah, the lights being on is pretty odd for the building's purported raison d'etre. Heck, there's a pretty good argument that the building shouldn't even have working lights of that caliber, but that can just get a Hand Wave and not be dwelled upon that much.

There's a few possibilities at this point, but that it's a different trap than the one Magus and Sirleck think it is has a pretty strong possibility. Which isn't to rule out any other flavor of clusterfuck.

I can think of two possibilities:

1. Someone else is robbing the place too.
2. Arthur got back from his vision quest and called for an immediate review of all the artifacts in the warehouse, having foreseen this consequence.

Neither would explain the lack of vehicles in the parking lot, though. If Magic CIA was here, you'd think there'd be a car or two parked outside.

edited 12th Mar '18 12:54:32 PM by TobiasDrake

I do wonder, did the guys at Magic FBI get the wise idea to put Abraham in the same room as the dewitchery diamond?

The mundane answer is one of any of the artifacts caused it. But I doubt that will be the case.

Wednesday Comic.

It's finally time. Also, that glance from Sirleck!Ellen.

@27088 For the first possibility, that's distinctly possible, although it'd be a poor way narratively to suddenly include a new party, even if it's one previously introduced. Which isn't to say that it wouldn't be done, but it'd be a total Shocking Swerve.

The second, though, probably not. Flipping between the plotlines has it a bit fudged about the time between different events, but I don't think it's been that long since the vision quest. Even presuming Arthur did have the sense to send a team to investigate what's going on, I'm not sure they would have had time to get there yet.

As for the lack of cars in the parking lot, I'm seriously rooting for "underground parking area." It's a sensible solution in many respects.

For today's comic... eh, get on with it. I guess it does make sense that Abraham wouldn't have been all that smart about naming, either. Or he could have named it after its shape, which is kind of a dumb way to name it, but hey, Abraham.

Wood shavings? Excelsior!

I see Shive still can't be consistent in drawing the Diamond, even after all these years. (Can you at least settle on how many facets the stone has, please?)

To be fair, how long has it been since he last drew the thing?

I'm not just talking about since the last strip - the Diamond in the first panel does not match the one in the second and last panels in terms of shape, even after accounting for perspective angles.

When someone says "have you noticed...?" You should listen to them. It might save you a large amount of pain and/or embarrassment

I'm actually kind of hype. Let's see how this all goes to crap.

First of off, is that the real diamond?

Considering that Magus can apparently track magical signatures, probably.