Annotated 47-16
Ardaic’s not pulling a Downfall-style meltdown here, but the slight pause and cold stare in panel 4 should make you doubt whether he’s as ready to take the L as he says he is. Certainly it seems more spite-driven than strategy-driven to blow open the doors, since by the time they are open, the gnomes will be at least half a mile into tunnels that ordinary-sized humans cannot navigate, making their way out of the vicinity of the capital city before they surface. Assuming Taro hasn’t had time to conscript his old playmates into the army from that time he got kidnapped, the gnomish prisoners Iwatania has are all it’s likely to get.
(What sets gnomish iron apart from regular iron, anyway? It’s probably the obsessive purity of the smelting.)
FB: Kepfer’s too little, Ardaic’s too late.
It looks like Tobias is one of the prisoners in the last panel. Or at least someone with similar hair and mask.
Yeah, with Berta and Isidro on either side of him.
Noted and updated!
Actual existing iron is if I recall correctly, not pure iron, but alloys. The composition of the alloys give different properties, and getting the right carbon content is a crucial element of creating steel.
So gnomish iron is probably better then the commonly used iron, because they are both alloys but the gnomish alloy is closer to the desired properties.
Or to say it simpler, gnomes might have invented steel and simply is calling it gnomish iron. Like Wootz steel.
It reminds me of the Detroit Rule: food sounds better if preceded by a location, named after the one exception. https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-10-25
In Guilded Age terms, any object or substance sounds higher-quality if prefaced by a race. It’s the Landshark Rule.
What was the point of the gnomish attack? I never quite got that… They could have all just hidden away safely.
If they’d had time. But even gnomes, organized as they are, can only flee so fast.
If the army got between them and their getaway route, they have to pull the “cornered animal” defense.
Remember: The best defense is an offense.
And the best offense is an ambush.
I notice they have shackled the gnomes with their hands in front, where, perhaps they could work on each others bonds? I wonder how many prisoners will actually arrive at Iwatani’s palace?
That is really hard to do in practice when you are being watched. If there was less soldiers, maybe? But this was set up as a occupation force right below a city already under martial law.
Yo, Silver Goon.
There’s no such thing as Gastonian rule anymore.
For the record: “Pure” metals–whether it’s iron or aluminum or whatevs–are pretty much always less trong than not-pure metals. That’s because metals are crystals, and the more “regular” the crystalline pattern is in the metal, the easier it is to bend. Irregularities in the crystal lattice come from either A) impurities (like the carbon in steel, for example or B) cold-working (aka bending/smooshing) the metal to introduce gaps in the crystalline structure (this is why blacksmiths smack swords to give them their shape instead of pouring them into a mold and calling it a day). For extra fun, people who REALLY know what they’re doing can vary the impurities throughout whatever thing they’re forging, making hard brittle iron on (say) the edge of a blade while leaving the center of the blade soft so the whole thing doesn’t shatter when you use it.
My guess is that the gnomes understand all of this better than everyone else–even if gnomish iron is still iron and not some superior iron alloy, if they understand how to work the metal better they’re going to make better stuff out of it.