How about a few new comics for the weekend?
Castoff – Vector always dreamed of traveling. He got kidnapped instead. Now, with the help of a short-tempered bounty hunter, a happy-go-lucky cartographer, and many more unlikely friends, he has to try and make it home in one piece.
Ingress Adventuring Company – Toivo Kissa is Ingress Adventuring Co., a very small, very wizard-based dungeoneering service. No job is too small, though sometimes his adventures are problems of his own making.
Children of Eldair A sorcerer saves a girl from flesh-eating demons. After trying to use magic to find her friends, he’s trapped in a vision of the past–one that will help him save the world and the girl he loves.
XII: Of Magic and Muses: Willow lives in a mundane and restricted school, which ends up being the worst place someone could get gifted a magical necklace. Desperately trying to contain the magic within, this act of futility seems to just make matters worse. As the necklace crumbles the school’s secrets around her, Willow is left to wonder if it was a gift sent by friend or foe? Find out at xiicomic.com
By Towering Barbarian Fri Feb 15th 2019 at 3:05 am
And if Meat knew that probably meant that all the henchmen did as well! ^_^
By scared192 Fri Feb 15th 2019 at 8:12 am
Good question.
By Targ Collective Fri Feb 15th 2019 at 12:40 pm
I’ll confess I was worried. Si’Ri and Gul’Jagen’s origin – remember? – the helm linked to Gul’Jagen was linked to the belt as a part of the same set, and people have theorised that Si’Ri’s gear might be her item of the set.
I had real concerns that the power belt sealed some kind of thunder demon, and that there was some way of undoing the seal that had been triggered. With magic it can be anything, and descendents are a popular way – the demon sealed to the belt and forced to serve man, yet it the man should betray his own son to the demon, then it will go free. And the soul of the son will be forfeit…
Now this spell would not account for people forgetting this. It’s too *important* to be forgotten. So the mages don’t leave an instruction manual. Why? No-one would ever need it. And then the world turns, a war or whatever. Or famine. Maybe everyone gets sick and for whatever reason magic can’t help. everyone dies, anyway.
(See what I did there? Four horseman reference. Keep an eye out because there are many ways to read this kind of thing.)
…And then Claw finds the belt. And then his son tries it on…
And it is totally unfair. This thing that no-one ever thought would happen, suddenly it happened. It isn’t the curse’s fault. It was never created to account for this. It doesn’t care that the Claw wasn’t betraying his son. All it cares is that he put the belt on…
I don’t know where the belt gets its power. Maybe Kyle gets to keep his soul. That would be great. Maybe even when they are all free the demons can go home (though maybe Si’Ri won’t want to). But my worst case imagining, Kyle getting trapped like the henchman we now know as Gul’Jagen, I’m glad Kyle isn’t going through that. And maybe the belt is magical, but without being demon powered. That would be great.
We’ll see, right?
By Targ Collective Fri Feb 15th 2019 at 1:01 pm
(Of couse selling your soul is impossible in real life. It’s a currency that is too valuable to spend, because if you were to give it away you would still have it by virtue of being it. The old riddle “I give it away and still have it. What is it?” One answer that fits is ‘trade’, but another is *oneself*. Which is why the original context of selling ones soul is about selling oneself to servitude.)
By Targ Collective Fri Feb 15th 2019 at 1:14 pm
(While I’m in a storytelling mood, there’s the old saying that if you get a person’s True Name it goves you power over them. Presumably by renaming them, but True Names dont work that way, they are intrinsic. It’s rubbish. It does mean that you can call the person, literally from anywhere, you can summon them. But the True name is totally in the power of the person whose name it is. They could choose to stay still and you would be pulled to them like running the Rite of Ashk’Ente backwards. And if you don’t want someone to know it you can take even the memory of it away…)
By Targ Collective Fri Feb 15th 2019 at 1:24 pm
(Oh! A note if you need to do this. Taking the memory of the True Name from the Universal Memory is forbidden, for the obvious reason that you would cease to exist. No one knows if anyone has ever done that, or whether if you did you would be retroactively removed from causation or not. That’s not encouraging, if you think about it. And it is considered good practice even with the part of a person that is not indivisably One with said Memory to get the Universal Memory’s permission to take the Name from the part of the person that, you know, is able to safely forget, if you’re facing abuse through it. It’s these little tips that make all the difference!)
By Wizard Fri Feb 15th 2019 at 2:20 pm
Well, super villains can often be a bit obsessed to the point of being oblivious to anything that doesn’t immediately involve them or their next master plan. But dangit, Claw, you’re usually better at avoiding super villain cliches.
By Marscaleb Sat Feb 16th 2019 at 9:51 pm
This is freaking hilarious; Meat’s line is the best!