2008-01-28 - "Better than I expected..."

[Veritas]

Star Wars kid, anyone?

[Viking-Sensei]

Ah, so it's magicless Ian that Anita wants to kick the butt of.

That's a really good drawing of Anita in the last panel. I still have no idea what age she's supposed to be... I wonder if she's the result of too much anti-aging magic... or maybe at night, she bathes in the blood of an elf that she's got tied up in a secret chamber somewhere before doing horrible, unspeakably kinky things to it.

Maybe I have too much free time.

[Viking-Sensei]

Ya beat me... I'll merge the posts, however you're going to have to do something about your title... it needs to have the date at the very beginning (for archival purposes), and I suspect if we throw 2008-01-28 in there, it'll be too long.

[Veritas]

You're the boss.

On topic: Couldn't help but notice Anita looks a lot more weather beaten in the last frame than previously, is this intentional?

[Fix'd for spelling]

[Slamlander]

Anita looks quite evil in this one. Although, why she is doing this escapes me. There doesn't seem to be a point other than letting her have a go at fresh meat. In non-magical combat, a half-elf has advantages over a plain human but not at the training disparity that we have here. However, Ian isn't human and Anita does need a baseline for the elven soma-type, and Ian is the closest that she has. Still, there are better ways.

Elves, like half-elves, would indeed include magic in their combat. The only chance Warrel stood was because his time magery took Sarine by surprise and with Flamma weapons, one opening is enough. With Sarine and Sara at Praenubilis Astu, that won't happen again. Reactive defense spells are only one of a number of possible effective counters.

Of course, Anita doesn't know that our little trio has even gone to Praenubilis Astu, let alone that they have arrived

[Lesha]

Please forgive my ignorance, but I seem to have missed something.

I thought that Ian was powerful enough to kill gods. Couldn't he kill Anita easily if he wanted to? So why does Anita think SHE'S the one who needs to 'hold back' in a sparring match with him?

Edit: Nevermind, I just read Viking-Sensei's post in the last topic and now I understand perfectly. If a mod could delete this post, that'd be great.

[Viking-Sensei]

I thought that Ian was powerful enough to kill gods. Couldn't he kill Anita easily if he wanted to? So why does Anita think SHE'S the one who needs to 'hold back' in a sparring match with him?

First of all, welcome to the boards.

Second of all, we don't know why she's doing this either.

Thirdly, don't worry about deleting that first post. It's still a really valid question, one someone (if not you) was bound to bring up... and will probably continue to come up until Anita says "Look, here's my plan..."

My theory is that Ian is a conduit for divine energy... but, as witnessed following his bout with the Patriarch and Anita's inside man, while he is capable of generating and channeling huge amounts of magic and even bending the magic of others, he is still physically succeptable (at least in theory) to damage dealt physically. While he was able to shrug off and heal up the sword damage, he was taken out by a relatively simple attack which knocked him unconscious (the electro-hand-zap backstab) because he didn't see or sense it coming.

If Ian were to fall into the wrong hands (IE, anyone other than Anita's) he could be used as an incredible weapon for the forces of evil (IE Not Anita) and she's trying to safeguard against that by toughening him up. She also may want to judge exactly how much control he has over his powers... whether or not he could "fight" fight someone without exploding into a giant godly ball of destruction again. This will be especially important to know if, oh, say, he's staying in your city for an extended period of time.

[BloodHenge]

She's not quite sane, is she?

I mean, she's the master of an ancient martial art practiced only by one secluded village, which kills any defectors and hardly allows any immigrants from outside to rise through the ranks.

She just challenged a career wizard with godlike powers to a physical brawl, with no magic.

Just where does she think this is going to go?

[Boss Out of Town]

She's not quite sane, is she?

I mean, she's the master of an ancient martial art practiced only by one secluded village, which kills any defectors and hardly allows any immigrants from outside to rise through the ranks.

She just challenged a career wizard with godlike powers to a physical brawl, with no magic.

Just where does she think this is going to go?

What this is going to do is allow Anita to judge Ian's mental, emotional, and physical status in terms she can understand and judge better than probably anyone else on the planet. She's got a potential lunatic god on her hands. She needs to learn everything she can about him, and about how he will handle his powers in a critical situation. This is one way to do it.

[Painrunner]

Possible theories drawn out of thin air. (feel free to dismiss at your leisure)

-Anita's so bored of fighting first rank time monks she'll fight anything for a change.
-This is part of her plan to condition Ian into total obedience, beginning with consolidating some point of superiority. In manipulation the soft touch doesn't allways work and she'll need some way of putting pressure on him if he tries to back down without Ian turning around and blowing her to bits.
-Anita already has a first impression of Ian's character let's see how he responds when pushed. (In a situation that again doesn't end in a room with chunks of charbroiled Anita all over the place)