Broderick’d
Please don’t be alarmed.
It was only a matter of time before I noticed you there, after all.
First of all, allow me to congratulate you on your rather remarkable scrying abilities. Very few magicians could have escaped my detection for so long.
Well done.
Bravo.
Ten points to Gryffindor.
I hope that you’ve been enjoying the show so far. Nothing would please me more than to know that my Delve has provided you with some small measure of entertainment.
No, don’t bother to thank me… I live to serve…
Still…
Now that you mention it, there is something that you could do for me…
Something small, almost inconsequential… at least to me. For certain others, however, the consequences could be quite dire.
I think we all know that a storm is coming.
And by a storm, I mean a battle in which a great many people will die.
This, in and of itself, would be entertaining enough, but let’s up the stakes a little, shall we?
Are you content to merely watch the tragedy unfold, or would you be a part of it?
Come now, I can sense your eagerness… let us not pretend that you are content to be just a passive observer in this.
I alone will not bear the stain of it upon my hands… well, my gauntlets. I think we should all get a little dirty, don’t you?
Let’s play a game…
You’ll see a list of names in my Riddle below. The lives of these poor souls are in your hands now. Your votes will save or damn them. Will they live or die? The choice is yours.
Easy enough, you say?
Ah, but there’s a trick to it…
You see, an even number of votes for a character will result in their death, whereas an odd number will spare them from a grisly fate.
Oh, and zero votes count for death, of course…
The Riddle will run until Midnight, Delve Standard Time, on New Years Eve. At that time, I will tally up the votes and pass judgment on the quick and the dead.
Honestly, I am ashiver with anticipation!
The game begins now…
Just make sure to put one of the characters that dies in a Robin costume!
Sharp as ever Dracomage. If that is the case, I shall have to carefully time my vote to right before midnight to get the desired result >:3
Ohhh who is that in the last panel? Who is it? Who is it? Who is it?
I think he’s speaking to the viewer. You know, breaking the 4th wall.
Read the description a direct message to the viewer
By dracomage himself a riddle of sorts he says it’s our entertainment but it’s really his I wouldn’t be suppressed if he knew we where here the entire time
Yeah now i see it, but the voting is complicated!
Hello Lord Draco Mage. Your proposal is an interesting one, but there are problems with the system you have described. With a 50% split, and a rash of voting likely to take place right at the very end, (as Mr. Moosey has stated he will be doing) the fates of our friends and foes will likely end up being completly randomized. I suspect this to be your goal all along, as a test to see how well we can cooperate in deciding the fates of all those named. Or not, as it only takes one last minute vote by someone willing to see Chaos triumphant to undo all the effort of the rest.
Clever Bastard. I hope our antics provide much amusement for you.
To the rest of the viewers of Delve, I propose this: we must debate and decide who will live, and who will die, and designate from amongst ourselves one who will cast the Final Vote, and carry out the will of the collective.
We can only pray that this Final Vote is the last, and no other will go after, else all our hard work be undone.
1) characters with no votes are guaranteed to die
2) characters with votes have a 50% of dying
3) peeking at the results (i.e. getting a snapshot of the current status) disqualifies one from voting (if this poll works the way most do), so making an informed decision is impossible.
Game design theory says that a game’s rules are designed to encourage desired behavior and discourage undesired behavior, though rewards and repercussions. What is being encouraged here?
1) sockpuppeting
2) lurking and last-second ninja’ing, like on an eBay auction
I’m old-school. If I’m going to engage in either, it’s going to be over something more worthwhile than a piece of fiction….well-written fiction though this is. In case “table talk” about actual voting, or posting snapshots of current results gets censored by the Moderator, I’ll leave my decision for a separate post. Although even if s/he does, the way I’ve summarized the game conditions suggests my answer.
1) characters with no votes are guaranteed to die
2) characters with votes have a 50% of dying
Therefore, in the words from my former tabletop gaming buddies, “Everyone dies, new game!”
I am aiming to prevent Option 1 from happening to anyone. Voting for all basically toggles the entire board, 0 becomes 1, 1 becomes 0. But this scheme is effective only if someone (namely me) does it once. Unless of course there’s some bloodthirsty soul out there who genuinely wants everyone do die. But that comes under the coin-flip of Option 2, because (without prior knowledge) one can’t insure a character dies for the same reason one can’t insure a character lives.
FWIW everyone on the list had a nonzero total before I voted. So, I’ve only increased the chaos, bwahahahahahah!
But you can view the voting results before casting your own vote. There is a view results button under the vote button. Also, clearing your cookies will allow you to cheat and cast another vote.
The poll mechanisms on other forums/wordpress pages (at least, the ones I’ve been on) don’t allow that, so I didn’t assume. The only way to find out would have been to click the link, and if doing so disqualified one from voting, it would then be too late (a “HA HA GOTCHA!” which I wasn’t putting past DracoMage)…. also with not knowing the clearing-cookies bit (I’m too honest for my own good, there’s a reason Judge Tux is my avatar). Logic fails in the abundance of cheating 😉 Now I’m going to have to consider the qustion for reals….
argh, wrong gravatar account 🙂
Well. This was unexpected.
Well, this should even the odds. Or possibly odd the evens. We’ll see, I suppose.
This could end very badly.
First think: DM now in the Friend Zone as deep, desperate and hopeless as his own Delve.
Second think: Aaaaaaaaah, he broke fourth wall and now he’ll devour our perv souls!! Aaaaaaaa!!!111
I can practically hear the author laughing at his little trick truly he has become the god of his show throwing away lives but now I wish to ask a question? How do we know you won’t just keep it as is how do we know you will change perhaps he has already written this script
Can we get pictures of all people we are because I do not even remember half of them?
Nyaaa, well played Dracomage. I rest assured I look forward to the lingering and twisted death of that goody-goodie Moonblade. I must say it has been infinitely entertaining watching a would-be thief hero bumbling around your Delve and losing her clothes so often. I have my own troubles with a muscle bound moron and his do-gooder friends so your insidious labyrinth has been a pleasant view of good times. I’m sure whoever dies in this coming storm it should be good fun.
Lord Keldor of Snake Mountain
Keep up the good work man … Make it fast if u can
I can’t know what everyone will vote for…. So I paid them all one vote each – an odd number, perhaps sparing them all a grisly fate….Logical, no?
that lamia looks so sad
I love how you made my vote (or lack of it) inconsequential. The Society of Evil Dictators thanks you for the idea: no more silly plebiscites, now it’s lottery!
What happens if the total number of votes is a prime? Multiple of 13? 42?
Anyways I voted for Pinkie (cute) and Capria (love her ear-cutting hobby), all the rest can die for all I care (who are Lyca, Kestrel and Tasche anyhow?) However as the vote stands now Pinkie dies (and so does Moonie), while Capria lives.
…
On the comic page itself: how does Bree even “know” that Moonblade will be loyal to her? Didn’t she had enough attempts of being murdered by the (former) Stupid Talking Machete already?! O.O
And DM: we feel your pain, yeah.
I’m thinking prime numbers should actually have some consequence. They’re not that easily come by, after all, and especially agglutinatively.
As far as why Bree would WANT Moonblade along, given that Moonblade did try without any reservation to murder her… only one thing springs to mind: cannon fodder.
Right now primes are for:
→ Pinky the receptionist: 349, sum of three consecutive primes (109 + 113 + 127)
→ Bree’s pickup group: 283, which is also an strictly non-palindromic number
→ Phawkes: 257
→ Capria & Beddigan: 223
What will they get? *bounces excitedly on his toes*
I feel like you don’t know how riddles work…
Hello. My name is Draco Mage. You killed my plans. Prepare to die.
i don’t understand this… blue isnt even real.. shes a weapon, both her and bree’s “spirit” were brought here after they were turned to stone. so how can Blue, claim pinkie??? and what body are they returning to ??? and if bree has a new weapon now what happens to blue? All of this is a dream or a dream-like reality form DM go back a few pages and see for yourself. so many question so little time.
Blue becomes pinkie’s weapon… I think.
I don’t understand the D&D subtleties implied but someone explained in the past that true ressurrection just gave Moonblade a new body. Live with it.
so, where do we vote, cause I’m not finding it.
Reload main page (click on banner on top). You won’t get the poll in the specific comments page.
Well I’d like more than 70% of the characters to live, just because I am a dirty dirty perv that wants to maximize the salaciousness of the ending, which is hard if most everyone is dead. Now, what I want to know is, how much would it cost to buy a Save crystal to use right now XD just in case we need a reset because the Delve fell, everyone died.
Is it just me or is it truly random? Not knowing if the site post time is listed converted into our local time or if it is just the time it was wherever it was posted. I will grant that I don’t pay super close attention to where the authors of various comics live (this one included) so maybe somebody is better informed than me but still…
Also, I can’t quite decide if I am extremely interested in what exactly is keeping the crotch piece of Bree’s armor in place. Maybe if I ask about it it will remember that it isn’t supported and should remember to obey physics (much to our pervy delight).
No, no, my friend, the true pervy delight is in imagining what *is* keeping it in place…remember, said support need not be visible to an outside observer, and one assumes it is not simply some form of adhesive (ouch!)…
No matter how your comment excited my obviously pervvy mind (yes, it did), we must not forget that magical stuff does not need to obey the laws of physics, at least the ones we are familiar with. Notice (two pages ago) that the complement of that absurdly sexy armor was a dagger made up of four pieces apparently held together only by magical energies of some sort. If Einstein could have figured such a solution to real world physics… then theoretical physicists would be surely unemployed but our world world be much more exciting, I guess. Hard luck! :/
Except that the dagger had obvious glowy energy “connecting” the pieces, readily apparent to an outside observer. Why go to a magic solution when a mundane one exists? 😉 Occam’s Razor still applies, even in a fantasy milieu…although we know from when she acquired the Moonblade that there has been minimal razor usage applied to the topic at hand…
I’ve seen it used in Brazil during the Carnival. I was watching a video and there was a lady who was wearing only glitter, pasties that barely covered her nipples, the crotch piece just like in the panel, and a smile. They were doing an interview on TV and they were talking about the parade and she was just there answering questions very casualy, when the crotch piece started to ride down. Well all of a sudden she was blushing and turning away from the camera so she could adjust it! She was very embarrassed after that. The social norms of nudity there are way different there I guess lol.
By the way, Draco Mage, I’m thinking that you should not have revealed which numbers would produce each result if you wanted the results to be truly random. There are many ways to trick an online poll and seems many seem determined to keep certain characters alive no matter what.
The fact that she just Epic-Friendzoned him has been overshadowed by the sudden explosion of meta.
Yee, c-string and assless chaps…