h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

*njan neatly steps in through the door, an icebow neatly drawn, looking around for any prospective opposition on almost every spectrum of electromagnetic energy possible*

*njan slings the bow, and takes out a second, lighter bow (a cavalry bow), to which he attaches an oddly shaped arrow. Firing this at the ceiling, he slings the bow, and jumps onto the rope, pulling the remainder of the rope up behind him, having the effect of sailing over the floor in a neat arc, over to the stand of the shieldbreaker*

*njan looks around again, and neatly replaces the shieldbreaker with .. the shieldbreaker. He puts the original shieldbreaker into a black velvet sheath on his back, and climbs up to the top of the rope, neatly winding the rope up behind him. He is now suspended around a foot from the ceiling, surrounded by rope, and with two bows and a sword slung on his back. He hits the release switch on the projectile end of the rope (hitherto stuck to the ceiling), and falls towards the hard floor*

*a fraction of a second later, njan is replaced by a glimmering silver sphere, and disappears, leaving behind him only a gentle popping noise as the sphere disappears*

Sorry about the amount of choice I gave you, but you /are/ using magic weapons, so it's kinda fair. And after all, as they say, all's fair in love and war. And after all, since we're friends, you could almost see it as both.

S'ok Njan - very happy to play along with you ... I'm always happy for my friends to take some liberties - that's part of being friends. I trust you.

PS: have you read Saberhagen ? Not run across many who have which is sad as The Empire of the East and the 9 sword books are amongst my faves.

Thankyou very much indeed. *bows respectfully* If you feel I'm taking too many liberties, or you're annoyed with how I'm fighting, please shout. (And I'll probably shout back. Tough. . No, I mean I'll stop. And be nice. *stifles a at the thought of being nice*). I will be nice. Really.

No, I haven't read the books, but I know quite a lot about them, which is somewhat fortuitous. ... I do hope you realise you're not going to win.

Where do you see this thread going?

Btw, you'd make an excellent mercenary. If you ever want to join, I'm sure we'd be quite happy to make a space for you. We might even give you a high-ranked position. There're excellent opportunities. And a free armoury and buffet.

Njan I have to be away for a couple of days (Houston) - we have to find a way of melding two universes and their rules. Shieldbreaker has it's weaknesses (it can't counter Woundhealer which is why I pulled it) and in the logic of Saberhagens world Doomgiver is the sword of _Justice_ not _Law_. I'm therefore very sure that in these circumstances it would protect me from harm arising from a specific attack on my person and general harm arising from the abuse of my permission to use my guide entry (for which the nefarious purpose was concealed from me and might be within the law but is also probably unjust).

Also wielding Shieldbreaker has it's pitfalls (you'll have to trust me on this) most notably that (1) you cannot now put it down and (2) the entire collective is put at risk as a consequence as Shieldbreaker will pull the entire power of the collective into itself and (3) you are open to non-weapon based attacks such as wrestling and boxing and martial arts and (4) Shieldbreaker will shatter on contact with woundhealer.

I'll think of how I'd like to handle it and get back to you as soon as circumstnces allow

I'm a philosopher, so I can quite probably argue for hours about this, but ultimately, consolidating law and justice is something that's evaded the finest political minds in history, so I'm going to leave it to rest and not argue (not to say that I'm conceding, however).

Unfortunately, Mystrunner's somewhat destroyed the thread, and I'm not quite sure how things're going to develop, but I'm inclined to postulate that it's maybe a good idea to resort to fighting either with weapons that require somewhat less interpretation and scrutiny, and are a little more accessible.. the shieldbreaker/woundhealer battle is one which even licensed saberhagen authors are asked to consult with fred saberhagen before writing about, so I doubt whether we'll be able to sort this one out that easily.

Having said that, I'm never one to give up, as you might have noticed.

And the mercenary position is still open.

Ah ha ! That website you went to to get the Shieldbreker/Woundhealer lore isn't correct - I've been there and you need to read the books in full to get the right interpretation. The last lost book of swords has been out of print for many years but I have a copy

Actually in all seriousness Myst has rather stifled things hasn't he but I think he was a tad frustrated. I think we need to all rethink th ewhol eBorg thing as I'm not sure it's really working all that well.

I'll think on it. See ya in a day or so - I may be intermittently online (depends what the Hotel is like).

Thanks for the merc invite - in any other circumstance I'd be honoured to join. Just don't know how it could work (unless you treat me like a freelance or a consultant or something). Think on it