The Goblins Fan Forum

Serini?

The Order just got a huge advantage which might have given them a chance of beating Xykon; now it's almost surely going to be taken away by Serini's ambush. It's doubtful she'll succeed in affecting all of the Order, but given that none of them really know she exists - they know there's a halfling rogue out there somewhere, but not this crazy half-monster Mordenkainen wannabe - the odds are good she'll neutralize at least two characters before the others manage to rally and stop her. And since she's clearly a Batman Wizard in terms of her preparation skills, I wouldn't put it past her to manage three kills. Combine that with the labyrinthine setting, and this could well be another Split the Party situation, unless Rich simply ensures that this doesn't happen for reasons of his IRL logistics.

Serini has clearly been spying on the involved players for ages, and probably has plans for every contingency, including whatever Contingency that Vaarsuvius is currently using (I assume there is one because there really ought to be for any wizard of sufficient level, unless they're intentionally avoiding it for various reasons, none of which we definitively know to be in effect here). That said, it is probably most likely to be V who has the ability to stop Serini, and both the knowledge and inclination to talk her down while they're both frozen in time or something. Which is exactly why I suspect the IFCC are going to spend their second possession op to ensure that V is taken out of this conflict, since the half-halflingtroll (aka the trolling half-half) is unintentionally acting in concert with their interests for the moment. The other reasonable possible outcome here is that the one thing Serini hasn't prepared for is Minrah, and that with all of Serini's magic items, she still has no defense against a low-level cleric spell that she didn't expect because it isn't one Durkon habitually uses, despite it being a typical choice of other Thorites (maybe something that recently started being commonly practiced in dwarventown which came after Durkon's exile).

Regardless of exactly what ends up happening, I think it's likely that with Serini's interference, the Order's chances of stopping Xykon are shot, and X will find the Gate and start doing his thing. The heroes will show up at the last second, too late to fully stop him, but will manage to hurt him badly enough that he flees to his FTTITAP, and the Order will have to deal with the Gate situation - possibly up to and including an unleashed Snarl that Xykon has ripped a piece off of for his own use, or something of that nature), and only later will they finally chase down X and have the true final showdown, possibly with a repentant Serini actually helping them. Also likely is that the IFCC will have to spend their other 20-minute possession in the current kerfluffle, so that when the actual showdown happens, they have only the three-minuter left, and that will give us a ticking clock scenario where V can come in as last-second cavalry as soon as the possession ends.

There, I think that's all the predictions this page has inspired in me. Been a LONG time since I was this enthused about where the story was going.