OOTS #1229 - The Discussion Thread

[Good Coyote]

Except she is fighting every single threat to her Gate. If she wasn't, she would have simply told Xykon how to get to the Gate already. The paladins and the OOTS are as much of a threat to the Gate as Xykon in her eyes, she has no reason to trust the genocidal, gate-destroying paladins, or the genocidal, gate-destroying OOTS.

She is eliminating the paladins and the OOTS via knock-out + amnesia potion. She is allowing the traps and the monsters that she put in place to deal with Xykon. You have no way of knowing if she doesn't have an alternate plan for Xykon that she's slowly preparing while the Gate's defences slow him down (like studying his spell repertoire and weaknesses, as well as those of his allies, seeking out specific magic items to be able to pierce his undead immunities and counter his magic items, etc.).

You are working off the assumption that she WANTS Xykon to win because she refuses to work with the paladins or the OOTS, and that's not what Serini said. What Serini said was that Xykon winning is preferable to non-existence. At no point did Serini said she herself has no plans whatsoever for dealing with Xykon. Her dismissal of herself "an old lady with a blowgun" when the paladins suggested a team-up doesn't necessarily mean she has no plans to take him out eventually, it can mean she has no intentions of tackling him in direct battle, which is what the paladins would want to do, and the exact opposite of her own tactics.

In support of this, on the last page the "Oh yes! The only threats more terrifying than an old lady with a blowgun are the two clowns who got beat by the same old lady." emphasizes that they are less effective than she is (or at least have proven to be so when facing each other).

Then she says, "No, I think you stopping him will require actions you'll consider fully within bounds," with an emphasis on the you. She is equally specific when she says "I do think there's only one way you two chuckleheads have any chance of stopping Xykon," not that nobody has any chance.

That's hardly proof that she does have a plan to do more than sit and wait while Xykon continues to goof around in the tourist-friendly areas of her dungeon. But there's certainly no evidence against it.

If she had plans to actually help him, and not just to oppose other parties as well, then it seems like... he'd have found the Gate by now. She is still opposing Xykon, she just isn't willing to work with people whose methods she finds beyond the pale in order to do so.

I do personally think that she should be more willing to hear them out, at least at the point that Lien says, "but that's not even an option this time," but then again, she's in a rush to go lock down the Order. Maybe she would be more willing if she wasn't on a schedule.

EDIT: Pure speculation ahead. It occurred to me... one reason that Serini nabbed the paladins as soon as they talked about poking in doors, instead of letting them run around like Xykon, might be that she didn't want to have to sit back and watch them die when Xykon found them. If she intervened after the point that Xykon became aware of them, then he'd have the Mystery of the Disappearing Paladins to solve and it might end up leading him closer to the Gate. She would not be willing to risk that. So her options were move early or don't act for or against them at all (which she believes would inevitably end with their loss).

Of course now he's got the Mystery of the Disappearing Dwarves, so that might actually be the thing that throws a crank in whatever her plans are and forces her to work with the Order instead.