Nale: Friend of a friend?

[Blas_de_Lezo]

What is the chain of "friend of a friend" who knows the ritual? http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0912.html

[nephilia]

What is the chain of "friend of a friend" who knows the ritual? http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0912.html

I suppose it means Redcloak who's a Xykon's friend which, itself, was a Nale's friend since they worked together in Dorukan's dungeon ;)

[Blas_de_Lezo]

I suppose it means Redcloak who's a Xykon's friend which, itself, was a Nale's friend since they worked together in Dorukan's dungeon ;)

I also thought that, but supposing that they were "friends", it's a direct relation.

[Sylian]

I'd assume he's talking about this (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0821.html).

"No. But I know who does. I've worked with them before. You won't get it from them without my help."

I'm not entirely sure how Nale imagined he'd get his hands on the the ritual, though, seeing how Team Evil would likely try to kill him if he tried to steal him, and they probably wouldn't give it to him if he asked.

[KillianHawkeye]

My advice would be to not take Tarquin's "friend of a friend" line too literally, since he was simultaneously summarizing and disparaging Nale's plan. He doesn't know the actual relationships involved between Nale and Xykon and Redcloak.

[Roland Itiative]

Nale was bull****ting his way out of being killed by Malack, I don't think he really expects he can just walk up to Team Evil and get the ritual from them. Still, his ego is too big to just admit his father was completely right in his assertions and decision to destroy the Gate, he'd rather get his Gate and then cook up a (overly complicated) plan to get his hands on the ritual than just destroy a possible asset just so an enemy can't use it either.

[Unisus]

Well, i took this as figuratively saying "someone who is not even directly connected"

[Gift Jeraff]

He's basically saying, "You can't be that close to them otherwise you'd have the ritual already."

[David Argall]

We might remember here that Tarquin "believed" the original version in the sense that it gave an excuse not to let Malack kill Nale. He didn't really care that Nale didn't have the ritual, just so he could present a story of being the only way to get it.
But once the race to the gate is over, he has to seriously consider that part of the story, and we don't need our knowledge of the story to know Nale has almost no chance of coming up with the ritual. [It's not impossible. As far as we know, if anybody does the ritual, Redcloak wins and so under the right conditions, he would be forcing it into anybody's hands. Of course, it is likely possible to alter the ritual just a little and choose a different god to control the gate. So he is not passing out copies of the ritual to all and sundry. But if you impressed him as the type who would do the ritual without trying to figure out what it actually did, you could probably "force" the information out of him.]
"Friend of a friend" is not meant literally here. It just means that Nale's story is vague and unreliable on this point.