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Story Friday August 26, 2016

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So far the only way that anyone has lost magic in EGS is by using guardian spells, and that loss is temporary. It may be an indication that Pandora and other Immortals can't de-power anyone once they've empowered.

Pandora's best strategy is unclogging the clog. Even if she can un-mark, how long will it take to do that? And what about marks left by other immortals? For all we know, there is an Immortal convention in Moperville. Lowering ambient energy to normal levels should decrease magic use.

Unclogging would also have the happy effect of making Moperville less of a monster magnet. At this point, we don't know if Pandora knows about what happened after the Mall: Vampires in Moperville. Since it's Sunday morning and we don't know how late the cast of So a Date at the Mall stayed out, it's likely that neither Grace nor Sarah have heard from them, Pandora might take some time to get clued in on this development.

 

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24 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

So far the only way that anyone has lost magic in EGS is by using guardian spells, and that loss is temporary. It may be an indication that Pandora and other Immortals can't de-power anyone once they've empowered.

Even if they could, it would be against immortal law.

24 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

Pandora's best strategy is unclogging the clog. Even if she can un-mark, how long will it take to do that? And what about marks left by other immortals? For all we know, there is an Immortal convention in Moperville.

Five MIGHT be convention. And who knows how many others will came investigate what's happening.

24 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

At this point, we don't know if Pandora knows about what happened after the Mall: Vampires in Moperville.

That didn't HAPPENED after the Mall. Just Andrea didn't told anyone else before.

24 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

Since it's Sunday morning and we don't know how late the cast of So a Date at the Mall stayed out, it's likely that neither Grace nor Sarah have heard from them, Pandora might take some time to get clued in on this development.

... agree, Pandora likely doesn't know about it yet and Sarah definitely doesn't. If someone will be telling her, it would happen NOW, but likely they decided it's not so important to wake her up.

Grace, on the other hand, might be already informed, as they are likely to tell at least something to either Tedd or Edward as first thing in morning and Grace will hear it. In fact, I suspect that next story will be about that.

 

27 minutes ago, Scotty said:
42 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

While that makes sense, what he's actually saying is that people born with magical talent will still have SOME magical talent.

It's possible that the types of magic talent will change, they may become wider, narrower or just move somehow.

The fact that magical talents are hereditary, suggests that it's genetic, or at least something very similar to genetics, Diane and Susan are good examples, Nanase and her family lineage is a good example, Tedd, might just be the right combination of talents to produce something completely different. I just can't see it rewriting a portion of a person without possibly doing harm.

The connection about what is in genes and what spells will those people get may not be direct. Or, maybe it IS direct now but wouldn't later. I suppose Nanase will still be relatively powerful, but Susan for example, what is the "important" part of her talent? The summoning or the vampire hunting? She may lose one of those aspects. Or not, of course ... there is basically no limit on how SMALL the change may be.

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2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

3) Unclog the clog ... which she explicitly said she CANT do herself.

 

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Talking about what Sarah will tell, though ... it IS possible Pandora will tell her to take Tedd and Grace with her and just be careful about what she tells them. Just because she talks to Sarah doesn't mean she assumes Sarah will do it alone.

 

It looks to me like Pandora plans to tell Sarah what must be done to break the energy clog.

Also, I think that the Frozen reference is deliberate, given what Pandora's current costume resembles.

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1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

I meant {Edward} wouldn't believe Pandora. And he wouldn't be likely to believe her even if she didn't have the kind of reputation she have - although yes, with this reputation it would be even worse.

I don't think Edward would just accept anyone's word on this and swing into action. He'd seek verification first.

I also don't think he'd completely discount an immortal's word either. Not even Pandora's. He might doubt it, but he'd be concerned enough to... seek verification.

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2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Regarding comment: is there really someone who only reads the main story and not the NP?

I think the concern is if a new reader started at the beginning of the main comic archive with the intent of reading that all the way through before reading the NP archives, that new reader would be lost when the main story references something that previously occurred in the NP.

Think of the Old Testament.  From Genesis up to Samuel, the historical narrative is fairly straight forward.  But once you pass David and Solomon, the historical continuity jumps around through the various books of the Prophets and the Writings.  Some events are detailed from multiple points of view.  And some centuries are glossed over with barely a begat mentioned.

A lot of Sunday School students start out thinking they can just read the Old Testament straight through and follow along the history of the Hebrews like they would read a modern history text book.  It's not so simple.

A new EGS reader might want to read through the main story archive before checking out the supplementary pieces.  It's not so simple.

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12 minutes ago, ijuin said:

Also, I think that the Frozen reference is deliberate, given what Pandora's current costume resembles.

I wasn't doubting before, but good point, didn't noticed the similarity.

7 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

I also don't think he'd completely discount an immortal's word either. Not even Pandora's. He might doubt it, but he'd be concerned enough to... seek verification.

I didn't wanted to say he wouldn't be concerned. Problem is this verification may take too long ...

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However my last speculations about Sarah's eventual role in the plot, since The Shive has stated in His commentary that

“we'll find out where this conversation went after we take a break from Pandora for a bit in the next part”

we won't be seeing Pandora for awhile, and probably not Sarah. Or, if we do see Sarah, we won't hear about the Pandora's proposition.

I'm hoping to see Susan next. It's been more than two years since Susan's had any panels in the main story. But I guess we'll have to get past the ask-Uncle-Edward bit first, and we don't know if Tedd's dad will be home. He's been called away at dramatically convenient times before.

It's also been nearly as long since we've seen any of our high school seniors actually in school, so we might find ourselves at one school or another on Monday. It could be kind of neat if The Shive does another split-page as he did on the next-to-last page of So a Date at the Mall matching up a panel with Susan on one side matching a panel with a panel with Diane on the other side.

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35 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

But I guess we'll have to get past the ask-Uncle-Edward bit first, and we don't know if Tedd's dad will be home. He's been called away at dramatically convenient times before.

Even if Edward wouldn't be home, there will likely be some talking between Tedd and Grace and others.

36 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

It's also been nearly as long since we've seen any of our high school seniors actually in school, so we might find ourselves at one school or another on Monday.

That's quite likely, BUT it will only be on Monday. And I think we get to see another part with Sarah before Monday, even if what Pandora said her will remain secret. So, most likely, Tedd, then hopefully Susan, then Sarah and then Monday at school.

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5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Regarding comment: is there really someone who only reads the main story and not the NP?

It took me a long time to get into EGS, and additional time before I really delved into the NPs. There is so much backstory that you have to know to really appreciate this series.

BTW, my favorite NP arc is EGS Coneven if it's not canon. Which brings up another theory: Did Abner the detective steal John Troutman's fedora?

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17 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

It took me a long time to get into EGS, and additional time before I really delved into the NPs. There is so much backstory that you have to know to really appreciate this series.

Hmmm ... I guess it's getting harder with time. There wasn't that much backstory when I was starting.

17 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Which brings up another theory: Did Abner the detective steal John Troutman's fedora?

No. Obviously, Teague have multiple fedoras like that.

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22 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

A lot of Sunday School students start out thinking they can just read the Old Testament straight through and follow along the history of the Hebrews like they would read a modern history text book.  It's not so simple.

Big talk from the Pharaoh whose people made compilations of The Book of Coming Forth by Day. :demonicduck:

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39 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

Big talk from the Pharaoh whose people made compilations of The Book of Coming Forth by Day. :demonicduck:

Not this again.  The problem is that a preposition was lost in translation and few words were misspelled.

The title was actually Coming In Fourth by Dey.  It was a memoir from Susan Dey on her coming to terms with being the fourth most popular Partridge.

How it was translated into Hieroglyphs and transported to the Old Kingdom is something no one could ever explain to me.

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I have a theory about why Pandora is talking to Sarah. Firstly, depending on how much Pandora knows- which seems to be quite a bit- Pandora probably knows Sarah was Tedd's lab assistant. Since Tedd's lab has wards on it put in place by Edward, it's fair to assume that at a minimum, the whole house has similar wards. Assuming  Edward doesn't have access to wards that can be permanently put on a person. As such, it's probably that Pandora can't appear to Tedd without Edward finding out- at which point, she may as well just appear to Edward. In other words, it may simply be she wants Sarah to let Tedd know what needs to be done.

Second, Pandora has to know- from the conversation in Question Mark, if nothing else- that Sarah wants to be able to use magic. When Pandora gest the energy clog unclogged, Sarah will lose access to her spell, since- according to Pandora- she hasn't the power to use it. She may want to give Sarah a power boost so she can at least use the mark without the energy clog. ( or, of course, even Awaken Sarah.)

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From what we know, Sarah can not Awaken until she has developed more energy capacity through exercise. However, she could give Sarah a magical-energy battery that she could wear and trickle-charge (similar in principle to Tedd's gauntlet).

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If Edward has put wards on Tedd (and he would if he could) then Edward already knows about all of Tedd's encounters with magical beings--including the interdimensional whales. Unless Edward out-and-out lied to his son, such words weren't operating then and probably aren't now. Unless, of course, The Shive wants a plot device to speed up the involvement of Tedd's dad in the developing crisis. Note that these strictures also apply to wards on the Verres house or parts of that house. And remember that Edward used a spell on Mild-Mannered Elliot to confirm her identity.

The only wards I remember in use were the ones that Adrian used at Moperville South and the one on the Hammer Cave. Those were set up by a half-Immortal and an Immortal, so being wholly or partly Immortal might even be a prerequisite for warding magic in the Moperverse.

Which might not disqualify Edward. Remember when Edward said "There's a reason why I know so much about immortals"?

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Just now, ijuin said:

From what we know, Sarah can not Awaken until she has developed more energy capacity through exercise. However, she could give Sarah a magical-energy battery that she could wear and trickle-charge (similar in principle to Tedd's gauntlet).

Does Grace still have that amulet she got from Dex? We didn't see whether she gave it to Tedd or Edward but if she gave it to Tedd, then Pandora might suggest that Sarah get it and allow Pandora to pump a pile of magic energy into her to do whatever she needs to do. We know that the spell Dex was using to summon the fire golems and bulldog dragon was the same spell as what he used to summon the fairy, what kind of stuff could Sarah do with her spell with extra oomph behind it?

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Pandora may not have made that amulet, as covered fairly extensively in the topic Pandora is being framedAnd Grace probably turned the amulet over to Edward, and Edward would have been likely to turn it over to DGB as per whatever regulations/directives/secret protocols apply. Unless, of course, Edward had already concluded that Arthur J. Arthur can't be trusted.

My impression was that the amulet was more about subverting Dex's will than empowering him. Didn't his mark do the empowering?

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28 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

My impression was that the amulet was more about subverting Dex's will than empowering him. Didn't his mark do the empowering?

The mark was the empower part by giving Dex access to the spell, the amulet was the overpower part and also allowed for Dex to be manipulated into summoning the fire golems and bulldog dragon and not have any memory of doing so after.

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Edward is still skeptical about Tedd having encountered the Whales, so it's probable that none of Edward's magical security methods were able to detect them during or after their contact with Tedd. It is probable that the Whales exist on one of the astral levels, and thus are undetectable short of "scanning the entire spectrum" of astral levels in the vicinity (like detecting a radio transmission by scanning the whole radio spectrum).

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2 hours ago, Scotty said:

The mark was the empower part by giving Dex access to the spell, the amulet was the overpower part and also allowed for Dex to be manipulated into summoning the fire golems and bulldog dragon and not have any memory of doing so after.

That's the analyses by Noah and Adrian--which could still fit the frame theory. But the pithos is shown throughout the sequence, including the flashback with Dex putting it on.

However, in the first page of the current arc, Pandora is revealed to have called herself "Box" for awhile. So it seems if she was going to put a symbol on the pendant, shouldn't it be a box? Assuming she needed to put any symbol on the pendant.

Any suspects about who might have put that pithos on the pendant? Gee, how about someone who goes by the name of one of the greatest know-it-alls in human history? Maybe Pandora made the pendant, but maybe she's not the only one who can use it.

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3 hours ago, ijuin said:

Edward is still skeptical about Tedd having encountered the Whales, so it's probable that none of Edward's magical security methods were able to detect them during or after their contact with Tedd. It is probable that the Whales exist on one of the astral levels, and thus are undetectable short of "scanning the entire spectrum" of astral levels in the vicinity (like detecting a radio transmission by scanning the whole radio spectrum).

Definitely.

I think there was talk about some wards on the house around the Damien storyline. Those might be temporary, but even more likely, those may be LIMITED in what they can protect from. Whales are likely completely invisible to them. Immortals may ALSO be invisible to them, based on the wards not being triggered by Pandora going into Grace's dreams. In fact, the Disco Wizard did not trigger the wards either.

In conclusion, I seriously doubt Pandora wouldn't be able to circumvent the wards. She, however, have much simpler reason to appear to Sarah: Sarah is more likely to believe her and not ask too many questions than Tedd.

 

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10 hours ago, JustBecauseICantDraw said:

One rather simple thing Sarah can do, as a D rank talent with an S rank spell, is take huge bites out of the ambient magic buildup.  It doesn't fix the problem, but it buys time.

I think this is a good part of what Pandora wants her to do, too. Well spotted. :)

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