New one's up. This ends the epilogue about Stanley's return.

Wow. Very good one. Expected response from Stanley, but still a good bit of insight from Parson.

Did a double-take at the last line. Nearly missed what he said over what he said.

_________________
-Dyne

I can't taste key lime pie.

Maggie has earned my respect for life.

Edit:

Wow. I completely missed that. Glad you drew my attention towards it.

Go Maggie! A woman after my own heart.

And profanity comes to Erfworld, after breaking a mountain Parson is now breaking the laws of the universe.

xx

Lou

Hmm, did Maggie lose loyalty to stanley and did it perhaps shift to parson? XD

Im just waiting for parson to get called up by stanley later to help pull the counter strikes butt out of the fire and for him to say something like "Oh, so now you need me to be chief warlord 'eh?"

Nice. I suspect "beats the shit out of a coconut" may be entering my normal vocabulary, replacing my old standby (and just as confusing to people who don't get the reference) of "warmer there anyway".

On a more serious note, we're still a little on edge. Is Parson glad because he thinks he may be out of the game completely, or glad because he can lead from behind? All signs to me point to the former - he's had enough of this crap and wants to be left alone, the over-the-top point being how vehemently he tried to tell Maggie to shut the boop up - but I can see the latter as well if Duty is still pushing him to act in Stanley's best interest.

Oh, and nice to see Ansom hasn't totally changed, giving Parson hell about the dishonourable method of his death.

_________________
So, Uncle Xykon, what's the moral of the story?
...And they died happily ever after. The End. Order of the Stick #657

We don't actually *know* that Parson is affected by Duty. He's been told he is and he hasn't risked testing it. My belief is that he's not and it's the wargamer in him that is guiding his behaviour (stronger than duty anyway). For example, he cheerfully suggested he should throw a brick down and croak Stanley with it, the idea of which alone made Maggie choke.

xx

Lou

I wonder what Stanley means by this?

Regardless, I'm really enjoying these text updates, if anything, they enhance the anticipation of the fall.

"Are you barking mad?"

Lol.

"Really. Ya think?"



Missed that too. Parson now appears to be able to swear when needed. Interesting

I half expected Ansom to stay in the capital, or at least direct the wars, and Parson to be placed in the field to gain XP and levels. That would have made sense to me. No move? Mount him on a critter. But just letting Parson sit around seems short sighted even for Stanley.

_________________
"Do it?" Dan, I'm not a Republic serial villain. Do you seriously think I'd explain my master-stroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting its outcome?

I did it thirty-five minutes ago.

Avatar hoarked from PS238.

Well, *someone* had a big bowl of Asserti-O's this morning. Go Maggie!

Apparently, his swearing passed unnoticed even to Stanley and Maggie, but I'm not sure about it: from a narrative pow, it was the best thing to stop the Update with Parson' sentence, without waiting for a reaction from the bystanders.

_________________
English is not my native language: sometimes my grammar will be wrong, and sometimes I can even seem dumb (so, give me a chance); it's never an excuse to be a jerk.

For the first time in her life, Maggie respects and admires her warlord.
She still had loyalty to Stanley, so she express (in a way very "out of line") the fact that Stanley is doing the wrong thing in firing Parson.
She don't remember one fact, expressed by herself: Parson's mind is their most valuable weapon.
Parson now needs to be relieved from the stress to be in charge.

_________________
English is not my native language: sometimes my grammar will be wrong, and sometimes I can even seem dumb (so, give me a chance); it's never an excuse to be a jerk.

Absolutely gorgeous. Not quite what I expected, but logical... and Maggie really surprised me. In fact, she amazed me and impressed me. That was a powerful moment from her, and a much stronger outburst of emotion than we had ever seen before... and truth be told, than I had ever expected from her.

If by "mentor" he means "keep you here, with me, in case I need to panic about Wanda" I would not be at all surprised.

Either way, the plot called for it, so I'm thinking that we're going to learn a lot about Erfworld in the next few updates. Maybe even with a handy Archon to serve as an Exposition Fairy.

The critical issue here is that this is the first time cursing has been used 'in the presence of Erf citizens.' It's a major departure from the previous event, where he spoke only to the mountain. It's another flap of the butterfly wings, another coconut of change. The compromises (or shall I call them 'peculiarities?) of Parson and Parson's world have begin to seep out into all of Erf.

As for the demotion, this could just be amazing stupidity on the part of Stanley. It could also be that he has a perfectly good reason for his actions, probably related to his own fear of Wanda and Parson, rather than something strategic.

Maggie's reaction is particularly odd, and strikes me as foreshadowing. Possibly no longer trusts Parson at all, and wants him out of the city? Possibly no longer trusts Stanley as much, prompted by Parson's own murderous speculations?

I agree entirely. I don't think Stanley's thought this situation through just yet. There's a lot to take in, after all. But me, I suspect he's going to come to regret putting a Decrypted in charge of his forces. Especially if he figures out Wanda's becoming too much of a wild card. Of course, this is Stanley, so by the time he figures this out, he's probably going to be completely unwilling to admit the mistake, let alone correct it.



What part of her statement makes you think she wants Parson out of the city? I think this is her sense of Duty flaring up. Perhaps not just towards Stanley, but perhaps also towards Parson. She genuinely believes Stanley is making a mistake that will lead to his downfall, and is voicing that opinion. On the other hand, she could be acting out of Duty (or Loyalty?) towards Parson (Mechanically, an odd occurrence, but Parson's already proven the rules of Erf have started growing fuzzy when he's around). Notice she doesn't drop the matter until Parson orders her to stop. Take notice of the choice of words in that line:


I think Parson's becoming a bit more influential than he realizes. I'm curious what he's going to do now as a player, however. Erfworld seems to be going along with his statement that he wouldn't be a game piece. The world is removing him from the conventional confines of the game. Perhaps Fate is interested in seeing Parson as a Player?

_________________
-Dyne

I can't taste key lime pie.

Wow.

Stanley really, truly, seriously is a complete dipshit.

I mean, being an insincere egotistical megalomaniacal goon is one thing... I mean heck, Donald Trump has managed to make a pretty good career out of the insincere egotistical goon shtick...

...but Stanley actually manages to add complete incompetence, and a total lack of people skills into the mix.

Personally, I'd been under the mistaken impression that Stanley had learned from his experiences at the air battle in the mountain pass, and might start growing a bit from his position of "incompetent late-night fast-food shift-manager who no one likes, suddenly made into a King". I can see now that I was wrong. Stanley could live a thousand years, and still not be even a tiny bit more wise than he is right at this moment.

Sooooo: Maggie's reaction to Stanley, and her sudden assertiveness in sticking up for Parson, tells us exactly where this is all headed.

Allow me to make some predictions/observations:

(1) Parson can, in at least one area (use of profanity), break the rules of Erfworld at will, without even a second thought.

(2) Parson, through his treatment of his team-mates/subordinates/followers is capable of generating actually consensual free-will-style loyalty.

(3) Stanley, is completely dependent upon the non-free-will rules-of-Erfworld to maintain a semblance of loyalty among his followers.

(4) Stanley, without the non-free-will style of "loyalty" becomes a pint-sized pikeman with only a hammer and a few dragons. (Troops controlled indirectly through his subordinates are far more powerful than Stanley's dragon force).

(5) Stanley has no idea of even the concept of "leave well enough alone"... so, he without a doubt will push things with *someone* in his command staff to the point where there will be a rift, and he will attempt to disband whoever it is. I'm not sure whether it'll be Ansom, or Parson, or Maggie, or Wanda, or Sizemore.

(6) But the attempted disbanding won't work... leading to Parson being forced to take charge of the Gobwin Knob side. So what he feared to do for fear of having to end innocent lives senselessly, he'll end up doing in order to protect his friends.

Anyway... that's my best prediction =)

_________________
I shamelessly stole my avatar from Cloudbreaker

Um, there are two issues that everyone seems to have overlooked:

1) Stanely apologized, or at least to, for abandoning his forces.

2) After running with Uncroaked warlords for so long, why would Stanley not have seperated the elements of actual command from the bonuses of the Leadership ability? Hell, yesterday everyone was speculating that Stanley would make Ansom Chief Warlord and have Parson actually give the orders. This is Step 1.

Something that comes foremost to my mind.

"Duty is highest in Chief Warlords."

Parson is no longer chief warlord.

_________________
Parson: "Not wise at all. Let's do it anyway."

Reconquering their lost cities will be child's play, considering the sides holding them have just had most of their militaries switch sides to Gobwin Knob. It actually makes sense to have Ansom handle it and give Parson a break.