Seeker of Thrones 6-72
Chapter: 6
“A true king of swords knows not only how to cut, but the value of each cut. Without weighing his blade carefully, he will soon find it carving away his own flesh.”
-Intra, sword god
“A true king of swords knows not only how to cut, but the value of each cut. Without weighing his blade carefully, he will soon find it carving away his own flesh.”
-Intra, sword god
Pre-mature treacherous murder, it happens to the best of us.
Well, that’s a bullshit attitude. Gonna need to correct that.
It’s less an “attitude” than “the nature of their existence”, actually, so correction seems somewhat unlikely. They are, at any rate, devils, so being likeable isn’t really a factor.
I guess devils dont follow the LOVE part of do as thou wilt.
Cio is acting like it’s obligatory to be Chaotic Evil. Really, Cio? Because you seem to be hating it, so it’s clearly not your true nature. Also, devils are naturally chaotic. There’s nothing saying you can’t be CN, or even CG.
Agh, things are so clear the Servants. At least we know our purpose.
Every bit of D&D-nerd in me screams at this, because Devils are Lawful and Demons/Daemons are Chaotic. But this is, of course, not D&D – and even if it were, the base rules and lore in that game are just suggestions after all.
Yeah, D&D alignments for fiends are the result of specific lore. These devils are nothing like the devils in D&D in terms of either lore or abilities so they wouldn’t have the same alignments.
WOTC turning everything from descriptions into suggestions has to be one of the worst developments to D&D. Lore is just a suggestion. Not even beings whose very nature is fundamental have any sort of predictable behaviour.
I’ve no love of WOTC, but have to disagree strongly here…
Every word in every DnD book ever printed has always been and will always be a suggestion.
We DMs have one rule, me lovely- “Do as thou wilt.”
This isn’t her true nature. Her true nature is returning from the Dust that was scattered on the wind. Being in one of the places that caused the scattering must be hastening this collection.
live, laugh, backstab.
=//=
WHAT DOES LOVE HAVE TO DO WITH IT?
Fuck you Cio, you wanted this. Stop being so angsty when Allison is trying to reach out to you.
Tha memory’s a smidge shonky. Cio wanted to avoid Yre like the plague, even tellin’ Allison “the place be like poison to me”. Our pretender to the throne didn’t listen, an’ now here we are with Cio slippin’ away and Ol’ Yabalchoath comin’ to the fore.
” Do as thou wilt”, but don’t act surprised when it bites tha in the arse.
Get her away from the angel, and play hard to get.
It’s a good plan.
You will notice her lips are at their fullest in this page. I mean, look at panel four! That’s the Sexy Nihilist lipstick of the Gog Agog WORK THAT FACE line! Crazy guilders just to order it on seven hundred thousand universes!
Really suits her, though.
Well to be fair, Cio just wanted to tag along, not be a thief again. Allison told her that they weren’t friends and to get back in the thieving saddle or get ditched in no man’s land.
http://killsixbilliondemons.com/comic/seeker-of-thrones-2-12/
Also, Alli just called them assholes for doing what they normally do, so that’d be another reason Cio would be irked.
Did she though? Pretty sure Cio specifically did not want to get back into this life. Allison was the one dangling a drink in front of the proverbial recovering alcoholic. Also Allison specifically said they weren’t friends. She can’t have it both ways when she feels like it.
Y u gotta be such a sudden dick to Allison, Cio?
Because she blames her for going to Yre. Not uncommon among men and demons to shift blame when things go sour. Perhaps that’s why they can often reach an understanding in deals.
Derisyan, you’re not gonna believe this but I’d like you to meet women. They have shifted the blame so far, It has taken over their identity as a whole and some don’t even identify with the feminist movement anymore!
Nothing is ever a womans fault nowadays, and theres always a finger to point. No matter how inane or ridicule the accusation is.
Wasn’t expecting to see a comment like this here, so heavy with personal baggage.
I hope you have found peace in the years since, oh Sociology Major. I also hope that major helped you avoid the slippery slope you seemed to be on when you wrote this.
Look at how Allison’s been treating her. What goes around, comes around.
“Sudden”? Methinks someone fails to recall Allison’s whole power-drunk arrogant asshole schtick of late, which, given the “we’re not friends” and threat to Cio, isn’t likely to do much to strengthen any bond between the two.
I know this is a year late but THANK YOU, my lord. It’s good that Allison came into her own, but the pendulum swung in the complete opposite direction, almost like she’s overcompensating. It’s good writing, but most in these comment sections seem to entirely forget how much of an asshole she’s been.
The “Do as thou wilt” phrase reminds me a lot of Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel books, which say, “Love as thou wilt”.
But I suspect the phrase is coined by the same source.
It was taken from the law of Thelema.
The phrase was, as far as I know, coined by occultist/writer/magician/Great Beast Aleister Crowley in the early 1900s for his religion Thelema. The full phrase is “Do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the law, love under will.” Modern day Wiccans have modified it slightly to “Do as thou wilt, and it harm none.” But I doubt that there are any practicing Wiccan devils in Throne. Though that would be an interesting development.
“
I thought the same thing. Do love the Kushiel series.
“…shall be the whole of the Law.”
A maybe-compliment. Certainly a good devil wouldn’t want to be anything resembling ‘human’.
There are no good devils, however.
I came to see you on a whim; twas a laugh to see the fix you’re in.
Till we two devils meet again.
Created, masked, and shackled, by names, a chaos lashed.
To serve the whims of mortals; but we’ll have the last laugh.
Devils’ total failure to grasp the concept of irony is one of their greatest redeeming qualities, to my mind.
Intra is wise.
yourapprovalfillsmewithshame.trope
That. Precisely. Oskar is either a lucky fool or a master of cutting to wound so deeply with such a simple stroke.
Hmm… I hope Allison and Cio sort things out soon. Pains me just a little bit to see them in their current state.
Did y’all catch how Cio said “THEIR rotten king”? Like she doesn’t answer to him no more. Well, except that whole deal with killing her if she fails.
Aside from that, I think Oscar is dead wrong. Allison is on a mission to save her boyfriend, so right there she isn’t thinking of just herself. But she is being a bit of an ass to one of the first people that helped her out.
Speaking of which… Interesting how Cio is a Devil that is (or was) tending toward a more human / less evil existance, while White Chain is an Angel that is (or was) tending toward a more human / less lawful existance. Almost like two different sides of a coin that are trying to becoming the same side. Or maybe just meet along the edges.
Very perceptive.
trying, or struggling to resist?
Hmm… Mr. Reaper, Sir, it seems to me that Cio and White Chain are both in a struggle to resist change, while at the same time striving to become who they really want to be. Y’all probably remember going through something like that yerselves when you were growing up. “I want to be a kid forever! But I don’t want no adults tellin’ me how to live my life…”
Like I tell my daughter, sometimes it’s hard bein’ a kid. Or a Devil. Or an Angel.
Cio’s, erhm, documentary efforts gave her a reason to care about others.
Alice has a little devil in her already.
So Devil’s are objectivists?
Objectivism assumes that all actors will want to make friends and build stable families, and generally acts like all parties ave perfect information about each other’s goals.
It’s like inverse Objectivism. Objectivelessism.
So, Nihilism, actually.
More on the spectrum of Chaotic Neutral. They don’t go out of their way to be good or bad. They just… Do whatever they want to do.
Heaven’s no. Objectivists futilely try to justify being assholes. Devils just do whatever the hell they want and don’t spout idiotic propaganda about it
And here we see that knives may have three edges, one contained in the handle.
cio and the angel both having crises of self. are they who they are, or are they what they are?
Intra has a legitimate point.
My master, among her many teachings, said something to this effect. She said that mastery of the sword does not decide what is cut; any fool can pick up a rusty knife and muster the will to cut. Rather, mastery decides what is not cut.
A cut cannot be unmade, so each cut must be measured carefully. Mastery is not the speed at which you can open a thousand cuts, but the speed at which you can measure out a length one thousand times, so that you need only cut once. And again, mastery is not even that, but rather the precision with which you swiftly measure out a length once, so that you needn’t second guess yourself and may cut once.
But alas, I ramble, as I am wont when given chance. For relevance, see, this is the cost of reckless cuts. My master said philosophically, to keep a buckle over my sword, so that I must unbuckle my sword to draw it. This way, I could not draw it in haste, with emotions clouding my judgment. I queried the possibility that I might need to draw it in haste for other reasons. She responded by saying that a buckle must either hold my sword or my emotions in check, whereupon I queried where I might find a buckle for my emotions. She claimed that such a thing is only gained with training, and even then it might come loose.
I suppose that is why I always saw her sword buckled to its scabbard.
A devil can desire friendship, though.
And Cio obviously does.
Did.
But now there is Yabalchoath!
Can a human befriend something shaped from that black ichor?
I have seen a human child befriend a lump of putty scratched from a windowsill. It was cared for with much affection before being replaced by a carrot that looked to have a face on it.
Never underestimate the capacity of men to be capable of stranger things than you or i can imagine.
If I’ve learned one thing and one thing only from the perceivers, it is that they will feel kinship with the most strangest of beings, whether we, or even they themselves, understand it or not.
We gave them faces and names, my lovelies.
What more have we ever needed?
Is it not a human’s duty to try?
Do or not do, there is no try.
For failure is not an option – it is mandatory.
The option is whether or not to let failure be the last thing you do.
Again I must muse, which of these devils still considers “doing as they wilt” to be making a frightfully ill advised play against the heir?
Were I a cynical man I would say all of them, so that Abbadon will have to tell only two stories instead of 11.
Suuz did as she wilt. That was her nature. But as in the fable of the Scorpion and the Frog, she doomed herself in the process. Time will tell if Alison is likewise doomed for this act.
Then desire family and the companionship of friends. The rewards are great, as are the risks.
The devils think they are pure id. From it they may have been formed but the ego of man has masked and named it into a form capable of progress and transcendence. With constant maintenance, the drive for instant gratification will enliven and enrich the will capable of taming it.
Come to think of it there is a super bossy, super moralizing, super angel waiting just outside to complete the personality trio.
CURSE THEE, FREEEEUUUUD!
DA-mn!! That made me laugh. Thanks Pazuto.
Mourning black does not prevent
further pain from being rent.
Eyes with tears already spent
“Do as thou wilt” but carry the burdens of your actions afterwards
I’m a little curious why Cio seems to have dropped her accent/vernacular. For example, It’s “you” instead of “tha” now. Or did I miss something?
Yabalchoath is a being of more weighty pronouncements.
Well,in past she said several times “you” instead of “tha”, so I don’t see a problem in this(but “tha” is way cooler).
What drives one to seek out this sort of misadventure? To desire it?
Do as thou wilt, motherfucker.
the blood of blame, she carries now
along the many-ambush’d halls
and of a deal, there is no vow
to join the fate that one befalls
this charter is not true a pact
of blue and red; they choose to act
That was good!