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Absum posted:Wouldn't this depend on where the Primordial dumps Silverlake? She may very well have to fight herself first, no? It also depends on if she even knows where Zorian lives. The Primordial could tell her but I don't think he'd think of that tbh. mol: She 100% knows where he lives. The first couple restarts where Z&Z get in touch with her she ruins all their plans by sending a bunch of spies to investigate everything about them. I mean I guess the author could say her spies couldn't track down the background of some schoolkid, but I don't buy it. I agree with SITB that her only realistic deterrent would be her fear of death. But tbh that feels flimsy af to me. She's literally some 100+ year old super mage, I have a lot of trouble buying that she doesn't have the means to mop the floor with Zorian if he doesn't have Zach, his golems, and his magic items. Not even mentioning that she's been working "with" Z&Z for months now with half an eye on betrayal the whole time.
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Nov 8, 2018 20:18
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Huh, I wasn't expecting that... I figured she was going to be her secret mother/sister or turn out to be the master manipulator who'd been the big bad all along.
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Nov 8, 2018 20:19
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sunken fleet posted:mol: She 100% knows where he lives. The first couple restarts where Z&Z get in touch with her she ruins all their plans by sending a bunch of spies to investigate everything about them. I mean I guess the author could say her spies couldn't track down the background of some schoolkid, but I don't buy it. The first thing I expect Silverlake to do is move her pocket dimension somewhere else that nobody knows about, then scout to try and see who was able to make it out of the loop. Cicero fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Nov 8, 2018 |
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Nov 8, 2018 21:01
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Cicero posted:mol: She would have essentially no time to plan, since she was taken out of the loop immediately and will enter the real world at the same time as Zorian. Plus, she won't know right off the bat how many people got out successfully, how they got out (soul replacement vs walking in), and what preparations they made since she betrayed them. For all she knows, Zach and Zorian and team just walked out bodily and plan to attack her immediately (and thus attacking real-Zach or real-Zorian is pointless), or will set up traps when she tries to ambush real-Zach or real-Zorian. Because if they had been able to get the whole crew out, that's totally what they'd have done. Honestly, if she wasn't lying about having an immortality potion I think the most logical move from her perspective would be to move her pocket dimension and hide for 70-80 years. Her deal with the primordial obligates her to try as hard as she can to free it, but given how much she knows about primordial prisons I'm pretty sure she could hold up her end of the bargain without putting herself in too much danger. Although she was really, really suspiciously interested in primordial prisons before the time loop- do we actually know why she was interested besides 'crazy, super-evil necromancer/soul mage'? Because if she has another agenda going into the endgame that could make her really hard to predict. I'm also slightly concerned about red robe, less in terms of pure power and more because they plain don't know who it is, which opens the possibility of random betrayals from all directions. (I'm curious to see how that'll be dealt with; we haven't heard from him for, what, 70+ chapters? Assuming he left the loop when we think he did, that means he can't have been almost any characters of note, but just having it be a random guy seems somewhat anticlimactic.) Omi no Kami fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Nov 8, 2018 |
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Nov 8, 2018 21:52
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Omi no Kami posted:Honestly, if she wasn't lying about having an immortality potion I think the most logical move from her perspective would be to move her pocket dimension and hide for 70-80 years. Her deal with the primordial obligates her to try as hard as she can to free it, but given how much she knows about primordial prisons I'm pretty sure she could hold up her end of the bargain without putting herself in too much danger. Or at least, that was the deal offered to Zorian, that it's implied Silverlake took. Cicero fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Nov 8, 2018 |
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Nov 8, 2018 22:24
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For some reason it kinda bugged me that (MoL) Zorian ended up escaping the loop with the solution of "and they just studied a bunch and figured out a way." Like, I felt like one of the big mysteries was "how will Zorian escape," and the answer ended up just being "did a bunch of magic studying and figured out a way." I mean, it's not necessarily "unrealistic," but it's kind of narratively unsatisfying.
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Nov 9, 2018 02:59
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Ytlaya posted:For some reason it kinda bugged me that (MoL) Zorian ended up escaping the loop with the solution of "and they just studied a bunch and figured out a way." Like, I felt like one of the big mysteries was "how will Zorian escape," and the answer ended up just being "did a bunch of magic studying and figured out a way." I mean, it's not necessarily "unrealistic," but it's kind of narratively unsatisfying. I wonder if that isn't the author trying to keep things moving? The story as a whole has felt really rushed to me since around the time they unearthed the sphere thingie, and there've been a lot of places where huge plot events happen so fast you almost miss them, but that could very well be the author going "Screw it, I need to get Z&Z out of the loop so I can launch the climax". Paced out properly with satisfying setup and payoff I could see jungle exploration to escaping the loop lasting an entire year or more, which would've been super frustrating as a reader.
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Nov 9, 2018 05:43
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Prac Guide Irritant’s Law: inevitable doom is a finite resource, and becomes mere doom when split between multiple heroic bands. Nemeses should never simultaneously engage a single villain.
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Nov 9, 2018 07:32
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I like the implication of Traitorous’s Law at the start of the chapter, that he pretended to be redeemed by a Choir and then betrayed them too. Truly, Traitorous and Irritant were the greatest of Emperors.
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Nov 9, 2018 17:20
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Silynt posted:I like the implication of Traitorous’s Law at the start of the chapter, that he pretended to be redeemed by a Choir and then betrayed them too. Truly, Traitorous and Irritant were the greatest of Emperors. He only had one trick, but he was Damned good at it.
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Nov 9, 2018 21:26
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Lone Goat posted:new Worth the Candles are up
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Nov 11, 2018 00:47
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Those were some chapters. The whole sequence post level up was almost physically uncomfortable to read. I wonder how making enemies out of the librarians will cause issues in the future.
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Nov 11, 2018 04:55
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Latest Ward chapters just support my theory that March is really bad news.
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Nov 11, 2018 05:53
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Kyoujin posted:Those were some chapters. The whole sequence post level up was almost physically uncomfortable to read. I wonder how making enemies out of the librarians will cause issues in the future. [WTC 134] I was hoping it would go on much longer, maybe with some big savestate reset at the end. It was nice for him to have an actual goal he gave a poo poo about...
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Nov 11, 2018 14:46
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Nettle Soup posted:[WTC 134] I was hoping it would go on much longer, maybe with some big savestate reset at the end. It was nice for him to have an actual goal he gave a poo poo about... Yeah, something that's always bugged me a bit about WTC is that for all the talk of narrative and campaigns, the dice guy honestly isn't a very good DM. The first bit felt decently well-designed, but since around the time they got soul magic it's felt like a directionless, spiteful slog that forces them to munchkin just to survive. Maybe that's intentional, since that's the sort of campaign that juniper himself apparently used to run?
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Nov 11, 2018 17:32
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GreyjoyBastard posted:Latest Ward chapters just support my theory that March is really bad news. March's enhanced powers as described are kind of confusing to me. Like, the way "timing" was described there could vary from something similar to a more limited version of Number Man's power (like basically just the combat applications of his power) to a sort of precognition.
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Nov 11, 2018 19:14
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marchs power is gandalf riding over the hill at sunrise, but also a quick time event where you jump off the giant bosses hand to get to his head at rip out his eye
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Nov 11, 2018 19:20
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Has anyone tried deciphering the code in worth the candle yet?
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Nov 12, 2018 00:01
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Affi posted:Has anyone tried deciphering the code in worth the candle yet? i put it through a very basic cryptogram solver and it came up with nothing. could be something like a caesar cipher but i haven't bothered to try.
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Nov 12, 2018 01:50
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Affi posted:Has anyone tried deciphering the code in worth the candle yet? I screwed around with it last night, it's weird in a couple of ways. If you look at the ciphertext it doesn't have any Js, which makes me think it's a Playfair cipher or one of its variants (I'd put my money on Vigenère). I tried brute-forcing the classic playfair and didn't get anywhere, which is why I'm leaning towards Vigenère... I typed up a really shoddy dictionary attack that tried all the non-English words in the story's body text as keys, but no dice. What's really weird to me is that I'm almost certain the ciphertext is encoding actual linguistic information (punctuation, spacing, word length look vaguely English-y, to the point that you can guess 5-6 words with pretty decent certainty), but if you do a frequency analysis on a per-letter basis, you get a distribution of characters that isn't consistent with English. So either it's a Playfair/Vigenère/other weird crossword cipher encoding a paragraph of non-English, or it's encoding something that's already been run through a one-time pad or another diagrammatic/block cipher to totally scramble its contents, at which point it's effectively unsolvable. I'm hoping the author wrote it to be solved, which implies several things to me: 1) relatively old cipher format (because ye olde timey fantasy setting), 2) easy to encode/decode manually (so diagram/process-friendly, not a whole lot of automation/computation required). What would make more sense in-setting would be for Mary to have an eff-off difficult scheme combined with one or more one-time pads, which makes it instantly unbreakable but a lot less fun to think about. Lone Goat posted:i put it through a very basic cryptogram solver and it came up with nothing. could be something like a caesar cipher but i haven't bothered to try. It's probably not a 1-1 substitution cipher, at the very least it changes in blocks or intervals- there are some words you can guess (replace all the single-letter words with I or A, "N eyr'u" is almost certainly "I won't"), but applying those substitutions everywhere else yields gibberish, so it's probably changing every few characters.
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Nov 12, 2018 03:51
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Affi posted:Has anyone tried deciphering the code in worth the candle yet? No one seems to, so I just did it myself: Message 1 Your ancestors and relatives poisoned you. You were always too cautious and to manipulative. That was not your fault. Your fault lies in not recognizing that poison and working to excise it. Juniper can help you with that if you let him. I won't suggest that you need to love him or reverse what you have done to your soul, but it would help, if and when he's over Fenn. Message 2 You love him. It's a deep love. Maybe you induced it in yourself as an ill-conceived experiment in manipulating him, or maybe it was the divine will of the Dungeon Master, but that doesn't substantially change the math. Your love for him is a core part of you, immutable by any technology or magic we have. It will poison any other relationship you have; I speak from experience. I lived past a hundred years old and never got over him, not for lack of trying, and not for lack of incentives. Turn off your dampers and let yourself love him. There's no reason not to.
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Nov 12, 2018 04:39
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oh shitz
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Nov 12, 2018 05:34
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Huh, what did the cipher end up being?
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Nov 12, 2018 06:40
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Ytlaya posted:March's enhanced powers as described are kind of confusing to me. Like, the way "timing" was described there could vary from something similar to a more limited version of Number Man's power (like basically just the combat applications of his power) to a sort of precognition. violent sex idiot posted:marchs power is gandalf riding over the hill at sunrise, but also a quick time event where you jump off the giant bosses hand to get to his head at rip out his eye i wasn't particularly referring to her POWERS re: her being bad news, but they're moderately interesting and also another data point in the Cluster Trigger Meta-Problem
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Nov 12, 2018 06:46
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Omi no Kami posted:Huh, what did the cipher end up being? Bifid with the keyword JUNIPER
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Nov 12, 2018 07:08
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mossyfisk posted:Bifid with the keyword JUNIPER Huh, I like that it was something you can reasonably code/encode without a computer. I'm a bit disappointed that the messages themselves weren't something like "This campaign is screwed up- hit Juniper in the face with a hammer ASAP", though- I think Mary is more interesting as a skeptical pragmatist than steadfast ally.
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Nov 12, 2018 07:11
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New PracGuide: Dammit, Cat, you’re gonna get Archer killed!!
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Nov 12, 2018 08:14
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Ward: I wonder if it's easier to drain cluster powers between two members of a cluster that are already related. Not that that's relevant to any of the canon clusters we have, it's just an interesting thought. You'd probably have to go less extreme with the final step depending on the degree of relation. One thing that got me is that I'd at first assumed March was obsessed with Foil because of kiss/kill, then I assumed she only wanted Foil to drain her, but the reality of the situation being 'both' is the worst possible combo. Would the kiss/kill obsession even persist after a draining, though? I mean, once drained, Foil might not be pinging the shards the same way, right? Finally, I think Tattletale not trusting Rain is actually pretty fair. Like, let's be fair, Lisa has a lot of experience with unstable teenagers raised in cult environments, between Alec and all his siblings. She's got good reasons to be cautious and not a ton of reasons to extend him the benefit of the doubt.
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Nov 12, 2018 17:37
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WtC: So if Spirit is what lets you make soul changes permanent, does that mean they could make themselves immortal? Like, Mary was using soul magic to give herself a younger body for decades, but it couldn't stay that way forever because the soul was increasingly out of sync with the spirit, right?
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Nov 12, 2018 17:54
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navyjack posted:New PracGuide: Dammit, Cat, you’re gonna get Archer killed!! Yeah, lots of death flags in that chapter.
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Nov 12, 2018 21:15
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TWI: Can any patreons tell me if I can read the next G chapter or if it is still infuriating?
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Nov 13, 2018 12:44
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Gladi posted:TWI: Can any patreons tell me if I can read the next G chapter or if it is still infuriating? It’s still more of the same. I’m ready for it to be over as well. There’s decent action and plot advancement but this supremely competent villain out of nowhere stuff is very irritating.
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Nov 13, 2018 14:28
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^you talking about Veltras or Starsinger? it's fine, but honestly the stuff with rags is just less interesting than the main plot right now since it's pretty much in a holding pattern
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Nov 13, 2018 15:07
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Rags has to lose everything so she can start again from scratch with the hobs from the Inn, and maybe a couple of her close advisors. She got too big too fast and the story has to knock her back down so she can go home to Erin, heal, work out what her goals are and start on a new, better track.
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Nov 13, 2018 15:24
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Veltras’s whole “I have a deeper plan but I just smirk whenever anyone asks me to explain it” shtick is frustrating to read for 1 chapter, let alone dragged out across 10. And his Deus ex Machina arrival literally seconds before Laken gets killed in the last goblin chapter really, really pissed me off. The new Patreon chapter is largely the same, with Veltras playing his game that he refuses to explain to any subordinates and therefore the audience. If you get triggered by a smug prick continuing to have successes with seemingly no setbacks, then continue to avoid. There IS a pretty dope Greydath vs Garen fight scene.
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Nov 13, 2018 17:36
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MoL is supposed to update today, after having been delayed a few days, and I'm hype as gently caress
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Nov 14, 2018 15:42
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Oh man, I can't wait to see how this goes. I'm really curious to see what Zorian or Z&Z's approach is going to be. On one hand, I could see him wanting to use clones/unity of purpose to go through the motions of a perfect month (e.g. sister's at school, sister introduces him to cat child, cat child gives him an inroad to telling all the shifters to get out of town) and stay under the radar, and I assume he'll at least start that way anyway, since he'll need a few hours to steal poo poo/earn money/ buy-steal-fabricate components for his golem simulacrums. But there's also a real argument to be made for making an immediate, overwhelming show of force to seize the initiative and keep Silverlake/unknown red robe guy from getting their thing on. Regardless, I can't help but wonder if he'll involve the military and intelligence services: it's been shown in the past that assaulting the gate and stealing it causes lichdad's country to flat-out cancel the invasion, and without that smokescreen I can't imagine anyone would have luck getting access to the hole long enough to do the creepy blood ritual thing, but with Silverlake's help they might not even need it to open a rift. Also, it's kind of a small thing in the grand scheme of things, but I'm genuinely curious to see who red robe is- assuming they were right about his having left the loop early I have to assume it'll just be some random guy neither of them know, since nearly every character of note has been seen and interacted with after the point where he is assumed to have left the loop.
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Nov 14, 2018 16:42
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MoL I can’t see Zorian doing a “perfect month” because there is already red robe and Silverlake to worry about. Silverlake at least knows where he lives. I think it’s basically * save family *save Zach *save closest circle All this has to be done before or during carrying out other plans (simulacrums)
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Nov 14, 2018 16:58
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Hype for that MoL update 
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Nov 14, 2018 17:01
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Hmm yeah, I suppose at the very least Silverlake knowing his identity, the general structure of his inner circle, and at least a rough notion of his capabilities is a complete non-starter. That's kind of disappointing though; while I don't want to read about him rehashing the month with future knowledge, it seems a lot more his style than open confrontation. Also, I'm almost convinced it won't happen, but I re-read the story last month and noticed that the first time Zorian notices Zach's weird behavior he's hanging out with two girls- whats-her-face the really nice but kinda ditzy woman, and a second girl who I don't think ever gets named. For the longest time I was hoping the second girl was red robe, because "Zach spills his guts to impress a girl, immediately gets backstabbed by her" entertains me so much.
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Nov 14, 2018 17:07
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