Xykon induces the Sapphire Guard to seppuku.
Cast[]
- Xykon ◀ ▶
- The Sapphire Guard
- O-Chul ◀ ▶
- Black-haired Sapphire Guardswoman (31) ◀ ▶
- Blue Crewcut Sapphire Guardsman (14) ◀ ▶
- Blue-bearded Sapphire Guardsman (29) ◀ ▶
- Eyepatched Sapphire Guardsman (22) ◀ ▶
- Road to Adventure Sapphire Guardswoman (3) ◀ ▶
- Black-Haired Sapphire Guardsman (35) ◀ ▶
- Blue Spike Haired Sapphire Guardsman (36) ◀ ▶
- Chonmaged Sapphire Guardsman (32) ◀ ▶
- Completely Bald Sapphire Guardsman (19) ◀ ▶
- Crewcut Sapphire Guardswoman (21) ◀ ▶
- Do-Ragged Sapphire Guardsman (8) ◀ ▶
- Goggled Sapphire Guardsman (24) ◀ ▶
- Grey-cloaked Sapphire Guardsman (33) ◀ ▶
- Flying Sapphire Sorceress (10) ◀ ▶
- Navy-haired Sapphire Guardsman (5) ◀ ▶
- Balding Sapphire Guardsman (7) ◀ ▶
- Blue-cloaked Sapphire Guardsman (40) ◀ ▶
- Blue-haired Sapphire Sorcerer (1) ◀ ▶
- Green-haired Sapphire Guardswoman (15) ◀ ▶
- Grey-haired Sapphire Sorcerer (16) ◀ ▶
- Grey-shield Sapphire Guardsman (2) ◀ ▶
- Jiaya (41) ◀ ▶
- Purple-haired Sapphire Guardswoman (13) ◀ ▶
- Purple Spiky-haired Sapphire Guardsman (34) ◀ ▶
- Teal-haired Sapphire Guardswoman (27) ◀ ▶
- White-helmeted Sapphire Guardsman (38) ◀ ▶
- Wingfooted Sapphire Guardsman (9) ◀ ▶
- Yunji (23) ◀ ▶
- White-cloaked Sapphire Guardswoman (4) ◀ ▶
- Eleven Other Members of the Sapphire Guard
Transcript[]
- Panel 1, Page 1
Xykon: Follow the bouncing ball, children.
Xykon tosses a pink ball.
- Panel 2, Page 1
O-Chul: SMITE EVIL! He cuts at Xykon with a glowing blue katana, "slash!"
- Panel 3, Page 1
Xykon: Meteor—ugh!
Black-haired paladin and O-Chul attack again, "slash! slash!", interrupting his spell casting, "fizzle!"
- Panel 4, Page 1
Yunji hits Xykon with her halberd, "slash!" and he falls to the floor.
- Panel 5, Page 1
All three advance on the supine Xykon.
Xykon: Are you absolutely certain that you shouldn't be paying attention to the bouncing ball?
- Panel 6, Page 1
O-Chul: ...What did you do? What sort of trick is this?
Xykon: Nothing, really. I just inscribed a Symbol of Insanity on one of those super-bouncy balls and flung it into the middle of your troops back there.
- Panel 7, Page 1
The ball is bouncing around the room, "boing! boing! boing! boing! boing! boing!", and all of the paladins have insane eyes.
O-Chul: Symbol of...
O-Chul: Insanity...
- Panel 8, Page 1
The paladins begin to attack each other, "slash! slash! slash! slash!". Crewcut Guardswoman attacks Grey-haired Sorcerer, Purple-haired Guardswoman beheads Eyepatched Guardsman as others fight around them.
O-Chul: NO!
- Panel 9, Page 1
O-Chul runs to the Flying Sorceress, while Jiaya chases Chonmaged Guardsman with her Katana.
O-Chul: Can you fix this? Can you dispel it somehow?
Flying Sapphire Sorceress: No, sir. I don't have the right spells.
Flying Sapphire Sorceress: But if it comes down to it, destroying the Gate itself would prevent it from falling—
- Panel 10, Page 1
Xykon kills the Sorceress with an energy drain attack.
Flying Sapphire Sorceress: AAAH!
Xykon: Smart kid. That's a pretty good plan.
- Panel 11, Page 1
Xykon: Don't you think?
Chonmaged Guardsman kills Jiaya with a wakizashi between the eyes.
- Panel 1, Page 2
O-Chul turns to run towards the throne while Xykon kills the Chonmaged Guardsman with four Magic Missiles
- Panel 2, Page 2
White-helmeted Guardsman stabs the Grey-cloaked Guardsman, while a Lightning Bolt from off-panel strikes Blue Spiked Haired Guardsman and O-Chul runs for the throne.
Grey-cloaked Paladin: Wait, stop! What are you doing—!
- Panel 3, Page 2
O-Chul passes Do-Ragged Guardsman, who made his Saving Throw and is not insane.
O-Chul: I am sorry, I need to destroy the Gate or all is lost!
Do-Ragged Paladin: I'll hold them off, you get to the throne!
- Panel 4, Page 2
O-Chul continues to run past Wingfooted Guardsman being struck by arrows and Purple-haired Guardswoman beheading Grey-shield Guardsman.
- Panel 5, Page 2
He mounts the dias, pushing aside Balding Guardsman and Road to Adventure Guardswoman. White-cloak Guardswoman stands near Blue-haired Sorceress.
- Panel 6, Page 2
He raises his sword to strike the sapphire.
- Panel 7, Page 2
He remains poised to destroy the gate.
- Panel 8, Page 2
Xykon: Paralyzing Touch.
Xykon: Heh.
- Panel 9, Page 2
Xykon:I tell you, Ugly, nothing's funnier than false hope. You really thought you had a chance there for a second.
Xykon: I mean, sure, I could've just blasted you all from above with fire and lightning and such...
- Panel 10, Page 2
Xykon stands at the foot of the dias surrounded by the corpses of the entire Sapphire Guard. Only O-Chul and the Teal-haired Guardswoman remain alive.
Xylon: ...but I've always felt that when it's really important, it's worth it to go that extra mile.
Xykon: Don't you agree?
Teal-Haired Paladin: Oh Twelve Gods... what have I done??
Teal-Haired Paladin: Forgive me!
She slices open her belly with her katana, "shlurkt."
D&D Context[]
- Symbol of Insanity is an 8th level spell which allows the caster to place a symbol on an object, and creatures nearby must make a Willpower saving throw or go permanently insane. Insane creatures will attack whoever is near them about 30% of the time, and counterattack any being that attacks them.
- As a lich, Xykon has a Paralyzing Touch ability which permanently paralyzes a target which fails a Fortitude save.
Trivia[]
- The paladin in the final panel commits ritual suicide over the shame of failure, a Japanese tradition which fits in with the pan-Asian theme for Azure City.
- Clearly, every attempt has been made to identify the Sapphire Guard members which appear in more than one strip. This wiki mostly follows the forum thread on this issue. While the number of people in the throne room in #447 appears to be only one more than the number of corpses in #448, a dozen of them are not clearly shown enough to be sure it is the same person in each strip. There are four paladins tracked in this wiki which are not represented in the tracking thread in the forum: Black-haired Sapphire Guardswoman, White-cloaked Sapphire Guardswoman, Chonmaged Sapphire Guardsman, Grey-shield Sapphire Guardsman, Green-haired Sapphire Guardswoman, though some of this appears to be an oversight as the first two were counted in the earlier version of the thread when these strips occurred, but do not appear at the edited list at the top of the tread.
- This is the final appearance of White-cloaked Sapphire Guardswoman, who first appeared in the previous strip.