Erfworld

Maybe, but if so it's not going to happen when they're standing in the Magic Kingdom. There are a dozen healers within arm's reach, at least one will be willing to work with them. Especially if it's to save some of their own after an indiscriminate attack by Charlie.

So now we have the answer: The prediction is real, and Parson has to be the one to personally kill Charlie.

Yeah.

Also Fate works in funny ways: Wanda breaking the link and the whole charlie foxtrot resulting from that likely IS the Fate's enforcing of the scenario.

edited 21st Nov '15 11:30:39 AM by Adannor

Mhm. It's too bad the 'giving the order that killed Charlie' thing doesn't count, but I'm mostly just glad Parson thought to ask and clarify that.

Are we sure you cant cast through a portal? Because this would be a really good moment to use some "No one is allowed to fight now" hippymancy mojo.

Were it me, I would ask Marie to go through the portal as an emissary, to negotiate the return of Lilith. Charlie would have to respect that.

If Lilith had killed Charlie, it would have resulted in another Spacerock with the portal closing. She'd have had to fly out with Charlie's claimed corpse while avoiding detection.

Not impossible, and in fact maybe easier than getting to the Portal Room. Without Charlie and the Dish (and 3 of 5 Fox Force Fiver's dead) she'd be facing disorganized Archons as she left the city.

With Wanda and Maggie boosting her through the link, and all the Archons losing Charlie's tool bonus, she'd have a pretty good shot at it.

They don't want to negotiate return of Lilith, they want reparations for her. Also they have nothing to negotiate with.

If Charlie croaked, wouldn't the archons nearly all disband?

As for negotiating- Parson can claim to want to order Lilith to cease attacking Charles Comm, if only he can be allowed to do so. It would be difficult for Charles to refuse without violating their agreement. The real problem, though, is getting the dead archon and the weapons intact. That's going to require some trickery.

Field units disband, garrison units are timefrozen. Still would've allowed her an escape, yes.

Also, new page. Hard choices, incoming kaboom.

Lilith is fast becoming my favorite character in this book. I can't wait to see the art for whatever the RPG does to that Shockamancy nexus.

edited 23rd Nov '15 7:15:53 AM by Fighteer

She's going to burn her butt off at that angle. I'm a little confused. According to the text, I thought she was directly below the portal room. Yet she's firing level. I dont quite get the geometry.

She is under the portal room and she is aiming at a shockamancy trap nexus positioned also there.

It's just a crawl space beneath the room itself that invaders wouldn't know about and archons apparently forget about.

I assume the archons know it's there, but Charlie ordered them not to enter the interstitial spaces of the tower for "clearance" reasons. Not sure why he doesn't want his allied archons in the interstitial spaces of the tower, but the order was pretty explicit, which is why Lilith has been left alone since she got into there.

I just realized... there are no Gobwins or Hobgobwins in Charlescomm at all. Or at least, not in the tower.

Why would there be? He's got archons. He bought out the natural allies for denial, not for usage. He probably set them to move into some far away location and didn't care a whit more.

Or maybe he sent them off for a plan in a far-off location. It seems possible.

I agree with De Marquis; if Charlie's weapons have similar effects to their real-world versions, then Lilith is about to suffer some very nasty backblast damage. (If she croaks from it, that would suck for GK. But somehow it seems unlikely the flow of the story is headed that way.)

edited 24th Nov '15 9:50:13 AM by ashnazg

I'm curious what will happen if any of Charlie's archons are hurt from this. Not the direct blast from the RPG, but the secondary explosion that will likely result from shooting the tangle of power cords. Would that count as damage from a Gobwin Knob unit? Lilith thought tripping a Charlescomm trap would count as damage from Charlescomm, so maybe not?

I'm also trying to figure out some possible way out for Lilith. She's definitely treating this as her last dance, but I'm wondering if there is a way out that we might be able to see. She can't pass through the portal, and her chances of escaping the city would be low even if she had move to leave the hex. Charlie sure as hell isn't going to ransom her back to Gobwin Knob. Are there any other options?

Archons cant move through the portal? Even though they do magic like effects?

Nope. They're not casters, and only casters can pass through the portal. They have abilities similar to casters, but gain those abilities at random by leveling up, not through study and discipline.

There are a number of unit types that use juice, but they're not considered casters.

Maybe Parson can establish a forward base in Charlescomm via the portal, at least long enough to break out with Lilith on a later turn. A weird sort of siege situation. Though this faces massive practical difficulties, e.g. passing through the portal apparently counts as an act of aggression and triggers the penalty, the implausibility of maintaining an extended defence against a capital city's full forces, etc etc.

There's always the off chance that a Decrypted unit can use portals.

Or that the auto-disband effect only works in one direction from the MK. Like, if by some random miracle a warlord or piker poped in the MK, they could walk out scot free but not back in.

Because, thinking like a programmer/Titan, when they built the portal's security feature it was to keep people out, not in.

In fairness we know that golems can exit the magic kingdom but shouldn't be able to come back in (but can somehow).

That may be their way out, get Charlie to do whatever he did to get the toy soilder into the magic kingdom (presumably changing the portal rules for a moment) so as to get her back.

edited 25th Nov '15 2:49:39 PM by Silasw

We were just discussing that question a couple pages back.

That's an intriguing possibility...it would solve the question of how the toy soldier returned, yes.

But Charlie has no reason to alter the portal in such a way, and it would be a hard sell to convince the Carnies in the Magic Kingdom to help, assuming they could even do it.