Preperations

RHJunior · Post by **RHJunior** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 4:22 pm

Yes, the coming brawl could result in injuries or, drastically enough, death.... even though Quentyn is taking reasonable precautions against just that (as will be shown)

But keep in mind. He's dealing with violent criminals. The only reason he isn't dead is because of a momentary fear of the guardsmen.... if they hadn't discovered Quentyn's identity and (mistakenly) concluded he was a junior member of the Guard, they might very well have maimed or killed him.

Granted, his motivation in using the Redcaps was visceral and instinctive--- not to mention vengeful--- but it was also right on the mark. He wouldn't have been able to accomplish his current plan without them.

As to his friends: how could they have helped him? One is a half-trained artifactor, the other is an obsessed, half trained musician. Quentyn is a Questor. That's like being an airborne ranger and deciding to take along a back-road auto mechanic and a garage band rock guitarist on a commando raid.
His other associates and acquaintances and contacts would either be unable to contribute anything, or would only push him to "leave it to the authorities"--- which he had already determined would lead to the thieves getting wind of it and either "losing" or destroying the sword to cover their own tails.
All else considered, he really is on his own for this one.

Shyal_malkes · Post by **Shyal_malkes** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 6:55 pm

the only thing I can say in possible opposition to this is that his friends would have ONE thing they could offer...

a clear head.

Quentyn did say earlier that his being seperated from his sword was driving him crazy.

other then that I can very well see your point

TGIF · Post by **TGIF** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 9:59 pm

I wasn't thinking of his young friends.

In addition to Master Irons (the head artifactor), there is Master Rillcreek (the wizard from Quentyn's village) and the swamp chieftain.

And let's not forget Lord Millfolk and Flint. I suspect that the staff at the F&O would also have some connections that he could have used.

Plus the guardsmen who dealt with him over the lab fiasco would be available to help him also.

And even though she is still just a child, I suspect that Nessie's powers could have been used to find the sword without going through everything that Quentyn has had to endure.

So while I can sympathize with Quentyn's trials and how this has left him feeling that he has no place left to turn, from my point of view he has several powerful adults that he could have gone to from the outset.

Just as a new manager often needs to learn to delegate tasks, even if (or especially if) he feels that he can do it better or faster himself, so too Quentyn is going to have to learn that sometimes you just shouldn't try to solve things by yourself.

TGIF

UncleMonty · Post by **UncleMonty** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 10:17 pm

Y'know... Sometimes you just gotta go with what the author of the story says he's trying to tell ya...

Tom Mazanec · Post by **Tom Mazanec** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 9:40 am

Glad to hear that Quentyn will make efforts to keep the gang members from being hurt or worse. As for the stealing this is allowed in Catholicism for 1) grave necessity with 2) no other alternative and with 3) firm resolution to make restitution ASAP. Quentyn meets all three conditions. This was why I was more concerned about his endangering the gang members, which RHjr has eased my mind on. Thanks. Regarding the friends, about all I can think of them doing is 1) Quentyn's plan, which he is already following or 2) offer to buy the sword from the Royals...but it is not for sale.

RHJunior · Post by **RHJunior** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 4:21 pm

TGIF, as I already said--- all the people he COULD turn to are either 1)unavailable 2)unable to help 3)Almost certainly likely to insist on doing the precisely wrong thing in this case and "go to the authorities." And going to the authorities would result in word getting out about precisely what sort of prize the criminals had in their hands. It would be like sending up a signal flare to the thieves to, at best, destroy the sword, or at worst try to exploit it.

You don't quite seem to grasp precisely how sensitive the situation is. The sword isn't just a powerful, dangerous and unpredictable weapon---It's bonded to Quentyn. It has his unique "fingerprint" on it. And in the wrong hand it's a blank check for wreaking havoc on Quentyn himself. It's like you lost an encrypted CD filled with all your personal information..... your driver's license, social security number, PINs, ISP passwords.....Hell, it's just this side of losing the nuclear football. It could be used to do things akin to identity theft.... committing crimes and cloaking yourself as the other person, making illicit deals and purchases, or the like. It could be used to attack Quentyn himself, even to blackmail him.

And the more people know about the situation, the more dangerous it gets. Every other person who knows means one more chance for word to get back to the thieves about what exactly they have.

He has to do this himself. He can't afford to tell anyone because the risk is too high.

TGIF · Post by **TGIF** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 9:32 pm

Thanks for the clarification.

Now I can understand his need to do this on his own.

I wonder if he's going to try and unbond WC after this?

TGIF

RedSquirrel456 · Post by **RedSquirrel456** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 10:08 pm

Is it actually possible to unbond something safely? Considering how deep some bonds can go...

Astral · Post by **Astral** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 12:59 am

Shot in the dark here, but I think 'Unbinding' WC would be far more dificult then with a normal bond. The Sword has an expinentualy complext program within it, with the HartRune at its core.
The way I see it, Bonding can be seen (at its most symple level) as a form of 'Password protection'. With anyother bonded object the format of the 'password' can be changed with ease, as it only afects the one line of programming (Remember that lux encharntments have to be in a single line to work, where as WC has a phisical program to designate which line should be used) The problem with WC arrises when you look at the complexity of the coading below the hart rune, not to mention the 'Retern' spell inately bound directly to it. Removing the 'password' from WC would be like trying to remove a whole chunk of the program, its bound to effect the rest of the coad. Its like removing a '.dll' file from windows and replacing it with one that is VERY simmeler but has a difrent comand path. Even if the internal elemetents are the same, the file name and cirtain parts of it would be dramaticaly difrent. You can't expect logical code to compensaite for these difrences unless a program is in place that can alter the rest of the coading apropiatly.
Personaly, I think unbinding WC could ireprably damage the fabric of the Sword's programing. However, Like I said, this is all a shot in the dark, as I haven't a clue about the workings of Bondrunes.

Tom Mazanec · Post by **Tom Mazanec** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 5:33 am

After this is all over, I wonder if Quentyn will ever be able to go to this part of the city, or the city at all, again.

The JAM · Post by **The JAM** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 7:09 am

Well, would he want to?

TGIF · Post by **TGIF** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 5:00 pm

Astral wrote:Shot in the dark here, but I think 'Unbinding' WC would be far more difficult then with a normal bond.

Well, Master Irons has mentioned breaking the bond as well as establishing a new one, so while it may be more difficult it certainly seems to be possible.

I guess the question really is, after all this is over does he want to keep the bond or not?

TGIF

Tom Mazanec · Post by **Tom Mazanec** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 9:10 pm

Considering that the three of them were drunk when they created that superspell and invented eight new runes...it is almost like three drunken programmers creating eight new assembler language commands and inventing a whole new operating system (and no Windows jokes please).

CasVeg · Post by **CasVeg** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 9:15 pm

Can we make BEERnix jokes?

TGIF · Post by **TGIF** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 11:51 pm

Tom Mazanec wrote:Considering that the three of them were drunk when they created that superspell and invented eight new runes...it is almost like three drunken programmers creating eight new assembler language commands and inventing a whole new operating system (and no Windows jokes please).

How about Intel jokes? (The way they fiddle with new instructions and changing "side effects" of existing instructions when they introduce new generations (or even variations) of processors - plus the weirdness of some of their changes - surely qualifies.

TGIF

Astral · Post by **Astral** » Fri Nov 25, 2005 1:17 am

Tom Mazanec wrote:Considering that the three of them were drunk when they created that superspell and invented eight new runes...it is almost like three drunken programmers creating eight new assembler language commands and inventing a whole new operating system (and no Windows jokes please).

Strangely enough, several of the biggest brake threws in viral software were discovered in exactly that way

RHJunior · Post by **RHJunior** » Fri Nov 25, 2005 7:04 am

actually, the eight boolean operations can all be composed out of combinations of a single one... the "NAND" gate..

So if you discovered that one gate, you could assemble the rest just from it.

Yuoofox · Post by **Yuoofox** » Fri Nov 25, 2005 8:32 am

I like to daydream about visiting the Seven Villages and becoming a "Lux-Gnosis" professor. I'm not saying that the Rac Cona Daimh couldn't figure it out for themselves, but I'm kind of proud of all the computer theory I've been learning, and I think they'd be impressed with it.