Seeker of Thrones 5-54
Chapter: 5
“Kassardis, for his part, could do little but flee to the canyon, carrying the old swordmaster’s weapon and clad in near-rags. Once there, he hid himself among the reeds in a low pool in the bottom of the canyon. It was cool, and shady there, and the coming evening began to wash over the land, and Kassardis felt, for the first time in days, peace enter his heart.
It was with dread then, that he heard the footfalls of his three wives entering the canyon not an hour later, and knew that his time had run out.”
– Tales of the Silver Prince
Well of COURSE the Devil loves wagers.
Especially ones that you didn’t realize were wagers when you made them.
So, umm, what constitutes failure?
When you cannot claim without opposition that you have succeeded.
Good question. What if Princeling is simply not there? Would that count as failure?
Ohhhh, Himself. This is embarrassment.
You could have asked for a cut and the Rising King would have accepted! THIS is what I meant about a lack of demonic imagination! Never you mind that you have all you could want in your “prison”, YOU COULD HAVE MORE.
What point is there in godhood, if not to turn the screws on mortality?
The Rising King’s cuts are incredibly dangerous. I would not want one either.
H I M S E L F actually made a pretty good deal for H I M S E L F and a pretty bad deal for Al-YISUN. She’s essentially conceded to writing him what is called a “Blank Check”, which is something that people are instructed to never do these days.
yeah, no, I think ‘spare a thought’ can go a goodly way
Spoken like a merchant, not a god.
This is why the gods died. No sense of opportunity.
Indeed, but which has lasted longer? The mighty deities of yore, or the business men who reside within their corpses?
Never trust a wager made by a devil. He will not make a possibility for himself to lose.
Spare a thought is a Chekhov’s gun, even if I don’t know for what, exactly
Call me paranoid if it pleases you, but I feel that these stakes would be on the table whether or not the wager had been made.
A formality, then.
I KNOW, RIGHT?
A dungeon master’s skill
is knowing not to kill
A player against their will
Maybe not. She’ll have to turn Cio loose now if she fails. Before the wager, that wasn’t mandatory. On the other hand, HIMSELF will have to let Cio go if she succeeds. Before the wager, that wasn’t mandatory.
The real paranoia comes from his reward for her success: being spared a thought. How powerful is the key if a spared thought is all he wants from Allison?
I suppose it would depend on the thought, wouldn’t it? Think big, Allison.
I’m not sure how I feel about Himself.
Maybe it’s too much to ask for, but I really want to see what Himself is capable of, beyond “letting things happen”. A saying goes, “If you want something done right, you do it yourself,” and I really want to see Himself DO something, rather than so little or so much commanding, allowing, unleashing, et cetera, of others.
Maybe it’s unwise on my part. Maybe Himself acting would punch a hole in Throne. Maybe Himself doesn’t act for the same reason the Demiurges don’t act, because there is a cold war power struggle and Himself is part of it, and Himself acting would be the same as any of the Demiurges acting.
Largely, though, the latter portion of this page’s conversation is academic in nature. Allison Ruth will not, in the large scale of things, fail to the point that Himself would be given to action. Or if he does, it would be because the devils Himself had sent failed; either intentionally as part of the game, or by incompetence. In either of those situations, anyone with eyes and the nerve to do so would call foul. Allison Ruth, at such time, would both have the nerve, and also the power to do something about it.
Probably.
The alternative is that a friend of mine is going to be down a very steep tab on a bar bet, and not to me.
Done nothing? I am astonished, honestly, that He has stooped to interfere in this cesspit as far as He already has, by attempting to shape the thoughts of the Rising King.
Why would he need to?
The best workmen use the fewest tools, and the death of a flea can cause the end of an empire one hundred years later. If one can see the innermost thoughts of everyone one speaks to, one knows exactly what to say in order to get them to do what one wishes. And if one controls the actions of a single person, one controls the whole of the future.
I once saw a puppet show performed by an old man winding a crank. The crank turned an array of thousands of meticulously crafted gears, all rotating at calculated speeds and disengaging at incomprehensible intervals. As convoluted motion of the cogs wound around through the clockwork, the wooden figures danced upon the stage, in random, nonsensical motion. The tinker nudged a control lever infinitesimally clockwise, and suddenly the mad caper of the puppets became a famous scene from a local opera. The flailing limbs were now poised and controlled; the once-writhing bodies aloft and expressive. Indeed, as the tinker confided to me later, his puppets could do anything — it was just a matter of inching closer and closer to the desired configuration.
@Arkwright, I would disagree.
AL-YS-UN herself could well create failure despite the best efforts of Himself’s minions…She has Incubus’ hooks in her, after all, and she was impetuous even before that, else she would never have picked up the sword, gone back after her (quite believably extinct at the time) boyfriend, and placed her feet on the flagstones that lead to the throne of Throne.
And in fact, I do believe exactly that will happen. I believe that AL-YS-UN will find her words and choices dangling Ciocie over the Pit (in a way, they already have, but I mean more literally), and that what happens then between AL-YS-UN and Himself will be more than slightly epic.
We know our greatest heroes not by their triumphs, but by how they conduct themselves in defeat. We measure them by the villains who oppose them. I predict Himself will prove more than worthy of handing AL-YS-UN a situation in which she must make difficult and terrible choices.
Pity I’m not an Oracle, isn’t it?
A wager with the King of All Devils? This shall end splendidly I am sure. Our dear Allison is looking a little shaken.
There is a 1.7% chance she is about the receive the Ur-father of all devil’s kisses.
Twisted words wind past the bars of the cage. If only it had been built soundproof.
Indeed, though soundproofing that would be a task even the mightiest would hesitate to attempt. Nevertheless, soundproof boxes would be an improvement when applied to Himself – and a great many other devils.
If no one wanted an audience soundproofing would not be needed. those who want an audience would defeat any soundproofing from the outside. The real problem is not the devil but the desires of men.
She would die anyway if they failed. What is there to lose?
Pride.
All things considered, that is a rather fair deal. Harsh, but Allison is dealing with literal devil’s. How deep will these ladies’ hubris dig them?
Given the view of those bars from the inside, it’s obvious that Himself spends a LOT of his time chewing the scenery.
Other than this page, I mean.
Aye, I wonder what makes That One angry.
Or may be That One just misbehaves when nobody is around.
Love the comic, only here to point out the typo at the end of the tale of the silver prince. Guessing it’s supposed to say later not layer there at the end. But seriously. Love this. Love Cio. Love u
Is one truly a gambler should they place a wager where all outcomes are beneficial?
Has anyone noticed how Himself doesnt reflent on the floor? Like back in those past two pages, everything reflects except his cage????? Is Himself even there?!?!
Some scholars say that a sufficiently advanced mind could not be contained. Even lacking any physical might, it could simply argue or cajole its way out of any prison.
I wonder, could such a mind also convince us that we were the ones on the outside?
Its a curious phenomenon, to be sure. I’m not sure what may come of it.
Good catch!
Far too consistent to be an accident.
Also possible: Himself is the only thing that is there, with everything else, including the liquid floor, being illusory.
..or Himself is indeed not there, and this manifestation is a Lie to speak though. After all, His containment is merely a formality.
So. The state her hubris rendedered her. Is that an ebon devil, or an unbound devil?
Her ambition caused her to become Ebon, her hubris caused her to be shattered.
Himself refers to that state to which Yabalchoath was condemned, from which Ciocie Cioelle arose: A shattered mask. Nonbeing as such. As your ebon highness might say, death.
A question:
From a broken mask, can you make two devils? That is, if a mask is split in twain, can it contain two lesser or none at all?
One has to wonder of any cage: Are the locks on the inside? And isn’t it the truth of the most insidious of cages that all the locks are right there in front of us, we just lack the understanding to know them for what they are?
But for “Myself”, I think perhaps he delights in the paradox that the most terrible of lies are built of truths, and would imprison the unwise and the unwary with such subtle bars that they never see the prison for what it is.
Himself seems to have an eye for talent. Perhaps it takes royalty to know royalty?
Setting death as the price is often
threatening a pillow with a chance to soften.
People walk around but their insides are rotten.
In SEEKER-OF-THRONES-2-9 I thought this guy was the chandelier…
…whose darkness shed an unpleasant gloom upon the entire room.
“No pressure.”
That sounds like… a pretty good deal, actually? Especially considering that if they fail they’re dead or worse anyway. So… where’s the catch?
Verily, shit just gotteth *real-er*.
no problem
when cio dies
just grant her
a new mask
a new name
and rejoice
The words of Himself coil around the bars of his cage pike the coils of a serpent.
What happens when the snake itself is the charmer? Nothing good, I bet.
So we have the only two choices: Ascend or Perish.
*Steeples Fingers* E X C E L L E N T
So this doesn’t really change the stakes at all.
Time is an illusion and it has only just begun; There were only ever two things to do, live or die. Kassardis has yet to choose along with our dear Allison.