Tom’s power level
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Hah! Demon orders are so finicky and downright dangerous. Wizzards must insane to have demons to order around. Just one misstep, and you are fucked.
Added to the complication is the amorphous nature of languages. As Alice had learned from Humpty Dumpty:
[quote] “I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’ ” Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’ ”
“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”[/quote]A very creative and imaginative demon can make any sentence mean anything.
Well, based on what I’ve dictated to The Author Guy, I think the power level question might get more complicated as other beings begin to enter the picture.
I think an important thing to remember is that the whole power level thing was pretty much devised by wizards for their own classification system.
We demons have basically adopted it for ease of use, but really relative power is very hard to determine. Sure, there are obviously weaker demons and obviously stronger ones, but if you were to ask, was Orcus stronger than Asmodeus or Sammael for that matter? Perhaps he was, but he’s dead and Asmodeus and Sammael are not. So part of “power” is knowing when to extend yourself and when not to. Orcus pushed too far and got his ass kicked in Etterdam, Smody and Sammy have been smart enough to not go head to head with Tierhallen. [Tierhallen is where Tiernon makes his home, so I’m referring to his host/forces]
Well, actually to me Tom does not deviate from the course or disobey orders. As I said just a while ago, languages is amorphous.
[quote]You will not deviate from your course to or from the tower in any way.[/quote]
It seems that Tom break this one but he doesn’t. The key here is the ‘your course’ clause. Since Lenamare doesn’t specifically specify a course Tom should take, this clause could be taken as Tom’s choosen course to go to and from Zilquar. He chooses to a course that went through the forest and he follows it, as ordered.
He also doesn’t violate the ‘directly’ clause:
[quote]You will go directly to the tower and demand to speak to Zilquar.[/quote]
The key here the ‘to the tower’ clause. That means it only applies when he go to Zilquars keep and not when he comes from Zilquars Keep. And:
[quote]You will harm no one nor anything at this point.[/quote]
Well, the key is the ‘at this point’ clause. It is rather ambigous. What did the ‘this’ pronoun points to? What ‘point’ does he mean? And when does this point (of time) begin and ends?
See? Give an order to a demon and you can always make ways to twist it.
One thing that I haven’t seen mentioned in this thread is Tom’s ability to disobey Lenamare’s orders when Lenamare sends him to Zilquar’s tower. The instructions were:
“You will go directly to the tower (false — Tom meanders around, looking at wildlife, etc.)
You will immediately return to me for further instructions (false — Tom takes a nap, kills a guy, flies about randomly)
You will not deviate from your course in any way (see above)
You will do nothing that I have not commanded of you (see above)”Tom goes to the tower and drops off the cylinder, but other that that he doesn’t follow any of the orders. This makes me think he is something more than a Greater Demon. Or it means Lenamare doesn’t know how to issue instructions or doesn’t know how tightly Greater Demons can be bound.
So, there is some uncertainty in the book when Talarius is scanning the “Palace of Evil” with his mirror.
He sees 4 dots of interest. He sees one green one running around and 3 blue ones. Two of the blue ones are close together and one of the blue ones is light blue, perhaps slightly turquoise.
First, the missing information: is the light one the one on its own, or is it with one of the dark blue ones?
Now onto the fun analysis. Obviously the two standing together are Ramses and Exador. We know that around this time they are conversing. The other arch demon in play is Bess so she must be the other dot. The green one of course is a Level 4 and therefore Tom. But we later see that Rupert registers as green and we know he doesn’t leave the palace until later. So where is Tom? Well at this point we don’t know Bess is in Astlan, so we should assume one of the blue ones is Tom.
Obviously if Tom is a blue, he is the lone one. That would make him an Archdemon. However, if the light blue one is the lone one, then it may be the mirror isn’t exactly calibrated to the arbitrary human classification of demons. That would mean that he is a very very strong 4, something we already knew/suspected. However, if the dark blue was the lone one… that would be interesting. It would mean Tom outranks either Ramses or Exador at this point and is unquestionably an Archdemon.
Final question: is Tom an Archdemon at this point?
The question is why the author felt the need to say two were “especially” close. Tom could have been close and not known it. Remember that at around this time, Exador and Ramses are walking around talking to each other. Tom could have been in a hallway one floor down and Talarius could be viewing them as close on his 2D mirror.
The other option of course is that Tom is so powerful he is ultraviolet and Talarius can’t see it on his mirror. I find that unlikely. I don’t think he has reached god status yet.
@smw:
Then at least the two of the blue dots should be moving. There are actually many variables against Tom being the third blue dot. Edwyrd is having dinner with Lenamare. He then was wondering around until he found the storeroom. Then he was exploring the palace with Gastrope. Exador is also seen rushing alone to his hidden room after being intruded by Rupert. Just check the events around those times. The likeliness of Tom and two of the three demons being close to each other in the evening for sometime is just very unlikely.
There is also the possibily that Tom is level three and would just show as a yellow dot. There could also be a possibility of the mirror having a glitch when it view new demons. There is also the possibility that Tom is a level 6, which is purple or indigo. Such color is easy to miss around hundreds of red and oranges because its hue is close to red and oranges and our eyes isn’t really sensitive to that color. Talarius could just have missed it especially when his attention is focused on the green and blue dots.
@Tizzy:
What gets your vote?
I always wondered about the first binding of Tom. Lenamare used an Lvl. 4 Binding spell.
But he also used an circle (multiple wizards to Combine their power)Was the Lvl. 4 binding spell supercharged by the circle?
This is actually a rather good question.
It’s not clear.
If you were going to summon a Greater Demon, particularly for the first time (e.g. say you found the name in a book) only a fool would go it alone.
There are couple accounts of the First Summoning as one might call it, one in Jenn’s Diary and one in an instructional discussion by Lenamare or maybe Elrose that go into detail.
In particular when you read it from this perspective, different senior wizards were responsible for different aspects of the spell. For example, I believe (and I may be wrong) that Trisfelt was responsible for maintaining the Wizard Link and channeling energy from the students and other wizards.
I think Jehenna did the Astral Journey and Seeker Spells and Hortwell did the pentagrams and runes for the most part.
The big key, they were all taken by complete surprise and they had the energy of several Master Wizards and a lot of scared to death students, some of which were reasonably powerful.
So this certainly would have helped supercharge things.
TAG is reviewing the various “First Summoning Accounts” and will be posting them on the website at some point in the near future.
From what I can read, they are actually excecuting two binding spells. The first one is for a minor demon. When it turns out (or so they thought) that Tom isn’t a minor demon, they excecute a binding spell for a level 4 demon. That itself could have supercharged the binding.
There is also the fact that, while they are prepared for the minor demon binding spell, they do the level 4 demon binding spell in a hurry. And as the saying goes, haste makes waste. They might actually work more on the level 4 demon binding spell than if they had done the spell properly.
Then they are also surprised and scared when Tom fight back. Surprise and fear usually cause our fight-or-flight response to kick in. These could caase the spell casters to cast more mana than neccessary for the spell and thus supercharge it.
The haste, the surprise, the two binding spells, the fear… a lot of thing actually goes wrong.
Just my theory, but that is what I get from that situation.
Actually if you take Lenamare at his word he was originally planning to show his students how to bind a bound minor demon when he found Tom. He thought that with his talent he could easily bind an unbound minor demon. He was quite surprised as he had believed most of the demons already bound so new demons were quite rare.
Tom then started to struggle more as they initially reacted thus bringing up his resistance, but Lenamare was ill prepared to bind a demon. The fact that Tom comes from a magic poor world is likely the only reason he was bound as people from a world rich in magic would more strongly resist speaking their true name as Tom was at the time not quite as suspicious as he should have been. Tom could in fact be stronger than a type IV and if so it is quite likely he will grow into that role quite soon. He is already a powerful IV so it is feasible as he has yet to learn.
Not quite sure what happens though. I know demons exist on a spectrum of power, but I lack knowledge as to what occurs when they advance. I would assume that a demon that was originally red that advanced to yellow would appear different than it had. I am also quite sure that a demon bound with a spell of a lower rank than it was would grow faster than a demon in the reverse situation, but for clarification ask Tizzy as my knowledge of Astlanian demons is lacking in some areas.
He was attempting to summon a bound demon that wasn’t under his control. I.e. a previously bound demon, not currently bound to him.
He had, however been doing it in a fuller more exploratory manner, looking for “previously bound demons to capture” It was a training exercise in locating previously bound demons that you don’t know the name of. I.e. demon hunting on the astral plane. He didn’t expect to find anything because it’s hard to find unbound, previously bound demons this way, (albeit easier than searching through books). Basically it’s a fishing expedition.
The key, the Astral Journey part is the same for finding totally unbound demons, and previously bound demons.
however, low and behold, they found a completely unbound demon. These demons are all from distant planes where the laws of magic operate very differently, or don’t work well. The Astlanian spells and magic are such that any higher powered sentients from these distant planes appear similar, colored balls of light, animus and mana. For whatever reason, the Astlanian’s don’t recognize these as humans/elves/etc, which they do for the planes closer to them.
I some ways, you could say these beings from the far end of the universe have been redshifted (not literally Rosver–but something similar) to the point the Astlanians don’t recognize them as people. From experience/training/history, they interpret these beings as demons that can be bound.
Typically, most of these beings, when found, which isn’t very often, are sprites, imps or shadows, occasionally a fiend and very rarely a major demon. Almost never would you find a greater demon, although it has happened. Theoretically, you might find a Major Demon, but no one has ever located and bound one. Presumably, the wizard(s) ends up dead in such a situation. And usually end up dead with a Greater Demon; unless they are planning to look for a Greater Demon and are thus super prepared.
Jenn discusses what happened in more detail in her diary, which will at some point make it to the website.
Is that what happen?
I thought that when they thought that it was a unbound minor demon, they try to bind it, but then it turned out to be something else and they change tactics. The wizards has taken his name and is calling for him to submit. I thought that was part of the binding and when Tom fought them they make a change of the spell. Guess I was wrong.
Looking forward for Jenn’s diary entry so I can really make sense of what happen there.
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