King of Swords 5-49
Chapter: 5
“Many fools admire the Gods, thinking them admirable and wise, praising their virtues, and asking for their boons.
I’ll tell you one thing friend, there ain’t nary a pious farmer who comes up short when it’s time for burnt offerings. He’s always got a lamb ready. He may not know it, but he remembers why the Gods are Gods in the first place.
You can ask for harvests all you like, but never forget they sup on fire and blood.”
– Mars Pallatrix, Belligerent Knight
I hiss at thee, Purple Man! Using those profane, barbaric arts of wanton destruction in the presence of the Gilded One, Lord Mammon! Have you no pity for the Dragon, whose wisdom demands solemnity before Him? Fuckword upon fuckword I put on your name!
If it were not for your righteous display of divine power towards the Hag whose swords desecrate the Coin, I would spring forth from my elevator doors and haul my piteous flesh before your palace to deliver a curse from the depths of my vocabulary.
You’re just jealous that the Celestial Empire’s currency wasn’t dented while the Grand Dragon Guilder’s value plummeted, and that [I], The Pontifex of Locusts, used that to extract labor from you at a pittance
At this point, even a pittance would suffice. However, seeing as I am a shattered pulp in a moldy elevator corner, the only labor I am able to perform is writing long-winded Mammonist apologia on my Hulton Industries K6BD Super Deluxe terminal I stole, and calculating compound interest down to the eighteenth decimal in my head. I am unable to convince anyone to trust me with any money, since I make my current income from theft, and my last lower jawbone is now powder on a Thorn Knight’s knuckles.
Would you like to open an account with the Bank of the Degraded Thief?
An account? No, but i’d like to purchase several shares of stock…
Get in while the elevator is on the ground level.
Looks like Allison’s got a big fan already. Nice!
Tiny tap huge boom
How does he have children withou wrecking the poor girls? LOL
Restraint is a form of godliness.
With so many descendants restraint ain’t something Salami seems capable of
Also makes me remember Barbados Slim, that black guy from Futurama who has medals in both limbo and sex
I absolutely read “Asking for their Boobs”
“Yes, I think I can confidently say I can.”
One thing I still don’t get is why Incubus is the only one to have worked out that Allison is the real heir. Seeing as three of the Demiurges are female (four, if you count Maya) why is everyone so ready to just assume that Zaid must have been the one Zoss was looking for?
To err is to human, while they are definitely not.
The cruelest trap of divinity is to see yourself perfect, and therefore – unerrable.
Which will cease them all in the end, I guess…
Jadis’ interpreters kept referring to the heir as “he” back on 4-78. I am personally not sure if that was the fault of the interpreter, or Jadis deliberately causing confusion.
Or a hint at an indifference between YIS and UN within her when she becomes true usurper
Jadis can’t be wrong…but AFAIK there’s nothing to indicate that she can’t lie.
Jadis sees all, yet can hardly speak at all.
First she tried to reason, but gave up after a season.
Now it is the fool’s fault when doom betides their impatience.
We don’t know the grammatical rules of Universal Metaconstant, but it could be as simple as the old sexist generic “he” in English to refer to someone whose gender is unknown, irrelevant or hypothetical. The prophecy isn’t exactly clear and specific, after all.
Maybe Allison is not the heir – it would make a suitable twist in the end for her to give up her key in return for a domestic life. With Cio, of course.
The entire point could be that you can’t be a designated heir, or that such a designation is meaningless; whether by any king or a prophecy or any other fancy method – you can only be what you take for yourself.
“Ohhhh……His….POWER…. it’s….UNBELIEVABLE !”
Prince Vegeta ( witnessing Cell’s power-up )
– Dragon Ball Z –
So this is Solomon’s version of a pinky promise.
That was MAHOGANY!
Nah, I’m sure that was stone 😛
The fact that Ki Rata’s weakest attack is named “Certain Death” is so badass! Wonder what a ten point strike would be called….
End all nine lives of a cat at once!
(takes a ten point strike)
Serious Series: Serious Punch
In the words of a legendary master…
“Skadoosh.”
Show us the merchandise or you’re gonna lose another head, Gog.
We’re reaching levels of smug that shouldn’t be possible!
Quickly! What does the scouter say about his smugness level?
Don’t know! It exploded before I could get a good reading!
No matter how many times I see Ki Rata in action, it still sends a chill across my being…
Solomon’s use of Ki Rata may well be a reminder that he got his Key by taking its prior holder head-on in a fist fight and killing him. With nothing to shield him from the instant death that demiurges can inflict but his own pure strength.
Solomon was a peer of the other demiurges in straight combat before he ever even became one.
It’s saying something that he himself still fears Jagganoth.
Aw man, Jadis is one calm cookie- she didn’t even flinch when Solomon cracked that table like it was nothing.
One might say she’s a cool character. Icy, even.
She just knew he would do that.
I see that Robert’s Rules of Order are not in operation at this little soirée.
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Trinity, unmarked and unremarkable.
Solomon David – God Emperor of the Celestial Empire; Grand Master of Ki Rata; Bearer of the word Diamond; Splinterer of Tables
FOOOOOOOOOOLS
Solomon David really is badass. And he took on and defeated a demiurge using only his mastery of Ki Rata. But of course even he fears Jagganoth, because old Elephant Mask cheats. Those nails from angel feathers make him invulnerable. It’s like playing a game in God Mode: no matter how strong your enemies are, the can never defeat you.
BTW: I really hope Zaid gets more of a role to play. Don’t know why everybody thinks he’s a creep; he seems perfectly normal, fairly sympathetic guy to me. Hopefully, while White Chain and Cio were training Allison, Solomon David was training Zaid in Ki Rata. And hopefully, he will become Allison’s ally… though he was conspicuosly missing from the picture Jadis showed during that first meeting of the Demiurges on the head of that dead god.
I both agree and disagree with you. I think he is a little bit of a creep, a lot of his dialogue in the first chapter or his texts to Allison that are briefly seen in the second chapter are pressuring her to have sex with him, which is kinda creepy. But I think rather than the common and cliche thing of having him be nothing more than a creep it would be interesting if he undergoes self reflection and character development and becomes a better person. I’d also like it if this goes hand in hand with him becoming a practitioner of Ki Rata and becoming a legitimate friend and ally to Allison.
Early Zaid was (and likely still is) a flawed individual; however, so was (and still is) our protagonist. The impression I got from his brief appearance at the start of this book was that much like Allison his experiences of the wider universe had made him develop into something more than “kindof a jerk”. He didn’t act cowed by Solomon’s obvious power, and criticised him openly yet in a measured manner. I feel there’s more to him than a simple inverted damsel in distress, and will be interested in seeing how the story develops.
Please recall that the reason Allison was dating him to begin with was that she was trying to lose her virginity. Somewhere between irony and foreshadowing, considering she wound up with Cio instead.
True, though my impression of their encounter was that Allison had agreed to have sex with him (she even scheduled it in her agenda) and that he was trying to put her at ease. He wasn’t very good at it perhaps, but he’s still young, and under the circumstances it’s understandable he was over-eager. In my view, that doesn’t make him a creep so much as a normal young man. But yes, I would really like it if he became a goodfriend and ally for Allison. He really seemed to care about her.
I also hope zaid’s role in the story will be more relevant in the future, i believe he deserves it. About him being a creep, well, we can only judge him by the comic’s first pages and he is not the most considerate partner. But those flaws don’t make him evil yet. He has been living among demiurges for a year and i’m sure he is as well informed about the world as Allison, if not more. It will be interesting to see how Solomon’s influence has affected him
Considering the training that Cio was giving Allison, wouldn’t it be ironic if Solly was giving Zaid more than his pinkie? But seriously, I don’t think that Zaid has done enough of anything thus far to sustain any speculation. I mean, it’s been more than three books already and we know almost nothing about him.
Maybe Alison will end up agreeing with Solomon’s plan to have Zaid take position as the Celestial Empire’s head of state, to protect it while Solomon’s out doing whatever he thinks will let him out-badass Zoss? It’s not like that would actually get in the way of Alison beating Solomon herself at a later date.
Oh! so the OTHER kings needta learn sum respect for the speakin’ house, but Salami Dave over ‘ere can destroy things will-a-nill? I calls bullshit!
Didn’t he JUST lecture the others on the sanctity of this place? Now he’s breaking the ancient conference table of the gods with his pinky.
BECAUSE HE IS CARELESS FOOOOOOOOOL
He was just getting their attention. And now he has it, methinks.
Breaking a table is not a very interesting feat for a guy who put a sun in the sky or came out on top in a war that extinguished suns. Mottom levitating a city without visible effort is way more impressive.
That’s the challenge of translating omnipotent power into practical terms: you either end up making the characters look silly or you end up as DBZ. And arguably DBZ “pulled punches” as well. Why is punching a guy through a rock impressive when you can casually delete a planet?
It’s like slamming the table when you’re annoyed.
Anyone else find it amusing that the shriveled, corpse-like sorceress is constantly attacking the living mass of worms/maggots.
Like a mouse continually coming up and biting a cat.
Perhaps Gog-Agog reminds her too much of her own death? Because you’re right Mottom really seems to have it in for the poor worm.
Makes you wonder what will happen when Gog-Agog tires of it… We haven’t seen her DO anything yet.