But is letting the gold people have it any better?

Ariara is NOT negotiating, but those sparkles by Goldie's shoes are beginning to get in her eyes...

Ariara: Yes, I do think you're negotiating, because you're tempering your potty mouth...

Also, I just realised Adell's still at large. How much does anyone wanna bet this is all a distraction so Adell can sneak up behind and grab the amulet...?

If those two "fight" for the amulet then burk can come in and sucker punch the winner and get the amulet back.

On another topic in comparison of their powers, midas's powers would work very well against standard soldiers and marchall artists like burk and the aristocrat. Ariaras power of the other hand is much more versatile and usefull against madic users as well as regular soldiers, the only thing im wondering about is why she didnt capture all of the soldiers and have her own private army.

Villain Fight! Villain Fight! Villain Fight! Villain Fight!

So they just played their entire hand in the hopes that the sociopathic pirate with control over metals (and loads of metals nearby) will simply agree?

Burk singing "strip the judge" is one of my favorite moments of this comic.

@The_Squished_Elf
I agree. Why else would they tell her all that? Maybe they'll pretend to be beaten, give her the box and leave seemingly defeated, only for the box to turn out to be empty, the artifact somewhere else and the amulet pickpocketed by Adell.

God I can't wait for Ariara to kill these guys, they're pissing me off so much :p

Here's hoping we don't get a cliffhanger when we don't need one.

@Ionrayner

This chapter's gonna sit this through till the end, no worries.

Burk singing in the background made this for me.

"the only thing im wondering about is why she didnt capture all of the soldiers and have her own private army."

Why bother? Although some stories treat controlling someones clothes/armor as if you controlled them, you aren't. An empty suit of armor should do as well (well I guess the fillng ensures to some degree that he armor stays together) and provide less resistance (through weight and muscles). But why bother when you can make things float, weapons do just as well. Well for blocking shields or armor might make sense.

Anyway if you don't want something from the specific person or hope that your enemies will hesitate attacking them controlling someone via their armor just wastes power.

Ignoring the introductionary chapters, we have had character-switches within about 30 pages, making us about due for a switch. However, a burk chapter has lasted over 50, so we could be with Burk for another month.
The strip has not been big on cliff-hangers and usually goes with scene changes, which also argues for sticking with Burk. But the Burk story is in danger of ending [2 villains fight, Burk clobbers the winner, the end]while the other two look to be far away from any conclusion. Leaving Burk now would at least contribute to a goal of having all 3 end about the same time.

Oh yes, the gold team didn't intent to blab about their plot and such. They just are bad about keeping their mouths shut, and remembering that our lass has ears.

Overconfident people often don't care about diplomacy. Maybe these two are such people. Or maybe this is a ploy (and they pretend to be dumber than they are), we will know soon enough.

Honestly, I think it's the same case of a box they just can't open. So they're going to make her want it, make her open it, then backstab her once she takes her attention off of them.

What's that thing the judge is holding ?

@ Scarred Wrable, he isn't holding it, those are basically crude hand-cuffs. They don't seem necessary considering his captor's powers so they are probably just for show.

Yeah, this is a version of stocks. In my mother tongue there is a name for this mobile stocks, but I couldn't find its equivalent in English. I suppose that even Ariara has to pee sometimes, and can't keep an eye on the prisoner all the time.