Erfworld

Technically, Lilith doesnt have to die, she just has to shove the body and the guns through the portal. Then Charlie has a GK unit inside his tower that he cant afford to kill. Negotiations can proceed from there.

But he can afford to kill her. He has a lot of money. Five million schmuckers for the last decrypted archon, who has done incredible damage to his side? He'll try to get her to attack first so that the treaty works in his favor, but he's willing to take the hit.

The thing is: he can (see page 107). He would rather avoid it (his main goal is to recapture her and capture or croak Parson), but he has no problem paying any amount of penalty (Charlescomm treasury = 680~ millions smuckers).

edited 26th Nov '15 8:28:00 AM by NonoRobot

If Lilith accomplishes her mission of getting stuff through the portal there isn't much point in killing her anymore apart from spite, so I could see him negotiating her release. However, the problem there is that the guns and bodies are all just bonuses at this point because a normal archon can't give him much more information than Lilith already has, he already knows the guns exist and the actual truly pressing concern for the side is that it needs money now. Parson himself will be disbanded if they can't get money before the end of the turn let alone whatever other units they may have. Plus all those elves they just recruited.

Pow.

Let's look at the bright side: if Marie croaks, Wanda just has to decrypt her, and nobody will have to worry about her upkeep ♥

If Marie croaks, I have absolutely no idea how anyone would work out the web of responsibility.

I doubt this is going to croak her. At worst, incapacitate, but I think even that's unlikely. I'm thinking more that this will make people get out of the way of the portal in case anything else violent comes through.

Didn't somebody say that casting through a portal was weakened by the portal?

This isn't a trap designed to be used through a portal, so if it is still reduced in effectiveness, does that mean Charlescomm just inflicted negligible but material harm on all the units in Parson's guard? I mean, a few of them look stung by it. This could be a huge gain to GK's treasury, even if it's pretty small change to Charlie.

That brings us back to the question of a Gobwin Knob unit shooting a Charlescomm object that then explodes counts as damage by Gobwin Knob, or by Charlescomm. I'm guessing Charlie would be liable for any of the damages, though it's hard to tell if Parson's soldiers are actually damaged or just surprised.

I don't things get to work out conveniently for Parson yet so they're probably still broke.

But at the same time they're not going to randomly go so horribly wrong that Lilith's shot just gave Charlie half their cities.

I don't know how to quote in this forum, so I'll just

@Arha Charlie probably does want Lilith captured and croaked (in that order) because she's now seen him and been in direct contact with his mind, not to mention has a much fuller knowledge of the layout of Charlescomm and its defenses. The brief debriefing she gave Parson is just the tip of the iceberg. She's more dangerous to him now for her new intel.

I'm hoping we see Chekhovs (tripod) Gun in action, whether due to equipment malfunction due to explosion or panicky casino floor guards shooting at random thinking it's Parson coming through. Oooh. If Marie accidentally falls backwards, her un-Erfishly large size could make the casino girls think Parson is coming through.

So that finally happened

That being said, Charlie is kind of a let down. I was expecting something truly horrifying. Though the odd shape of his speech balloons when not connected to the dish is creepy.

Edit: Oh wait, he's based off of Charlie Brown. Disregard that above paragraph because that actually makes Charlie really creepy.

edited 29th Nov '15 10:29:14 PM by lrrose

As somebody who never read that comic, it doesn't really tug on any strings for me, unfortunately.

Wow. Charlie Brown?! Never saw that one coming.

Also, yeah, most of the time you really don't want to see the Tower in your Tarot reading. There is no card that spell more "trouble" than that one ("Tower" is a brutal change, something unexpected, danger, crisis, destruction, and liberation; it is an event which you can't avoid and that will affect your life deeply; sometimes you need to break something to build something anew, and rebuilding never is easy).

I'd rather see the XIII card, which means "Change" overall (with much less negativity), than the Tower.

To put it in layman's terms: for everyone who saw the Simpsons' episode in which Lisa got a tarot reading, the usual reaction when drawing the Tower is the same one as drawing the "Happy Squirrel" card, ie. an Oh, Crap! moment.

edited 30th Nov '15 12:10:38 AM by NonoRobot

I didn't realise that was supposed to be Charlie Brown. That's...grotesque. (I just noticed that seems to be the Cerebro helmet he's wearing, though.)

And so Charlie's able to do some Predictamancy too, it looks like. Though tarot cards do seem to sit at a nice intersection between Predictamancy and Carnymancy.

Looking back at the strip with the Charlescomm transcript, I just noticed Charlie asked the Archons in the portal room to clear out the slot machines. Somehow that amuses me. Presumably only guests that aren't Predictamancers or Luckamancers are allowed to play? (Then again, it would be a nifty swindle to have a Carnymancy trick set up on the slot machines to defeat Luckamancy/Predictamancy.)

His tarot deck may be a magical item in itself.

The slot machines are probably for archons. He likely does not let anybody just wander the portal room ever. At most in that containment unit the portal room is in to deliver items and messages.

And yet somehow this is not the strangest interpretation of that character I have ever seen.

What is this kind of Signamancy even supposed to mean? He got tired of a metaphorical Lucy (Fate?) taking away the 'football' and now he takes away everyone else's?

edited 30th Nov '15 12:36:51 PM by Arha

I seem to recall it being mentioned that Charlie entertains guests from the Magic Kingdom in the portal room. It would explain the well-stocked bar etc.

What just happened to Charles Com? Opinions?

Well, the giant PWNED explosion was Lilith destroying the Shockmancy nexus beneath the portal room. Whether that had some kind of cascading effect that's going to take down Charlescomm entirely is an unknown.

edited 1st Dec '15 12:00:29 PM by Fighteer

Destroying the tower seems unlikely. The major difference in the before/after pictures of Charlescomm is that the glow is gone. So something roughly equivalent to blowing up the transformer powering a skyscraper? The tower isn't going to collapse, but a lot of stuff will have stopped working until things get fixed (including, apparently, the Arkendish).

I adore how Charley was talking about Fate having a pawn gambit in play and then the sound effect is PAWNED.

Yes, Lilith may well have partially depowered Charlescomm.