[QUOTE=Shienvien] Uhh... And how exactly does Nilick's mind and predicting work? I kind of assumed that she would draw the information up and do the probabilities when asked, not calculate in advance... And how would it all with interact with her slumber?[/QUOTE]
The problem with Nilick is that she doesn't really actively think about the things she wants to conjure knowledge about in the sense that she has to remember them or otherwise concentrate on them to make them fresh in her mind; rather her knowledge of everything that has ever happened, is happening and may ever happen is [I]always[/I] fresh in her mind and always readily available. The sheer enormity of the stress this puts on her is why she needs to sleep a thousand years every time she spends one day awake, because if she didn't, her mind would pretty much just... I don't even know. Cease functioning altogether, probably, reducing her to a drooling vegetable, which is close to happening at the end of each of those single days she spends awake anyway. Even when she sleeps all of the Oracle's knowledge is still there, in the foreground of her mind, but she is not conscious of it... Her mind is shut off during this time, and there is literally nothing left in her but all knowledge about everything.

[QUOTE=cthulu] @DJ does Thaler haz pet?[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Shienvien] (...It would take a whole deal of power and complexity from her words to control this supposedly highly intelligent and driven-mad beast for more than two or three seconds. I somehow imagine it would be as hard - if not even harder - to control as the average human.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Shienvien] (Yes, I recall what her words do... It's just "go and bite that person there, and [I]not any other[/I]; also don't walk over those guys lying on ground and just ignore those other guys trying to poke holes in you, m'kay?" is much more complex than "back down", "sleep", "stop", "kneel" or some such command, and making it last for long enough on a half-mad being that's all [I]"Freedom!!!"[/I] and isn't even humanoid (at least in my mind, mind-controlling things that are different from you is always much more hard to do than controlling ones similar to you) will only add to the load. Back in the old RP, you stated that using the word thrice in one day is pretty much her last limit...[/QUOTE]
See, this is where it all comes down to the difference between Thaler's True Words and the deities' True Words... for one thing the sentence Thaler spoke just then - "Serve me" - has no power in the deities' True Words because their commands are firstly always single-worded, and secondly because only True Verbs and a few names of epic importance have power in it, whereas the rest are simply there, mundane aside from being the equivalent in all other languages in existence. For another, while the deities' commands are controlled and directed by the will of the speaker so that only the speaker's interpretation has any influence over it, it was once determined that Thaler's commands rely more on the target's interpretation. And finally, while the perfect True Words command reality itself and bend the Planes to them (more or less), Thaler's imperfect ones only command the minds of beings, and only do so if the target cannot muster the will and strength to resist.
That said, I don't know for certain whether her command would work yet... I think I will write a post once I feel capable of doing so, and will assume direct control of the yth as I do that to better understand it and know whether it would succumb. There are several things that should be pointed out about this yth, though: this particular specimen is approximately ten feet long and nearly two feet wide across the shoulders, and its entire form is swelling so enormously with muscle that it's pretty much fit to burst; it is by no means as intelligent as the yth Aemoten fought, and even less so than the one Jaelnec killed, although it is pretty much fearless; and finally, it is a lot less concerned with freedom than it is with [I]"HUNRGY! THIRSTY! NEED PIAAN!"[/I]... Yeah, as that last bit would suggest this yth is actually quite stupid and impressionable, but it is also absolutely frenzied and experiencing piaan-withdrawal, which is not pleasant.
Will it serve Thaler? Depends on how it ends up interpreting her command, and what it thinks of it. And regardless of whether the Words actually work or not, "serve" is indeed a lot more complex than many other single-action commands... I doubt that it would actually make the yth enter servitude under her, even for a short time, as much as it would just confuse it.

Shit is still on my plate here so I can't pull myself together to post just yet, but hopefully things will calm down soon so I can get my head back on straight and find my characters somewhere in there.