The hobgoblins activate anti-insurgency tactics.
Cast[]
- Haley Starshine ◀ ▶
- Ho Thanh ◀ ▶
- Niu ◀ ▶
- Isamu ◀ ▶
- Redcloak (on a banner) ◀ ▶
- Hobgoblin Granary Browncloak ◀ ▶
- Main Tower
- Tower 5
- Twenty Hobgoblin soldiers
- Six Azurite Soldier's heads on pikes
Transcript[]
- Panel 1
Haley: OK, people, let’s do this like we’ve been training: In, out, and gone before anyone’s the wiser.
- Panel 2
Haley: Niu, you and Isamu round up the prisoners and get them moving toward the tunnels.
Niu: Yes, Haley.
Haley: And I want all of you carrying as much food as you can—we need supplies badly, especially if we’re ganna have more mouths to feed.
- Panel 3
Haley: Thanh, can you handle the granary guards by yourself?
Thanh: The anguished souls of a thousand unjustly slain Azurites will guide each swing of my blade.
Haley: I’ll take that as a “Yes”. Go, I’ll take out the browncloak.
- Panel 4
Haley approaches three hobgoblin soldiers.
Haley: Good morning, gentlemen.
Haley: At least, I think it’s morning. Sort of tough to tell these days, what with the giant swirling rift that blocks out the sun.
- Panel 5
Haley: Anyway, I’ve got good news and bad news.
Haley: The bad news is, I won initiative, so you guys get a sneak attack each.
Haley fires three green-fletched arrows, "fft! fft! fft!"
- Panel 6
All three soldiers lie dead on the ground.
Haley: The good news is, I don’t have to bother thinking up the second half to that joke, ‘cause you’re all dead now.
- Panel 7
Haley approaches the hobgoblin spellcaster.
Haley: Looks like it’s just you and me now, wizard. Hit me with your—
Hobgoblin Granary Browncloak: DANCING LIGHTS!
- Panel 8
Haley: …“Dancing Lights”? That’s like a 0th-level spell! Geez, what kind of low-level lame-ass spellcaster are you?
Haley: You’ve got one chance before I perforate you, and you choose…
- Panel 9
Haley: …Dancing…
Haley: …Lights.
The browncloak holds up a finger.
- Panel 10
Beat. Haley looks up.
- Panel 11
Cut to a scene of the Gobbotopia walls, Xykon's tower in the background. Hanging in the air above the city are four red balls of light from the browncloak's spell. A graffito on the wall reads, "DEATH".
Tower Five: Main Tower, we’re seeing a red diamond signal in sector 18, near the granary.
Main Tower: Copy that, Tower 5, we see it too.
- Panel 12
Cut back to Haley and the browncloak.
Browncloak: OK, so I’ve got bad news, and I’ve got bad news.
D&D Context[]
- Dancing Lights is a bard/wizard/sorcerer cantrip (0th level spell) that allows the caster to create up to 4 lights which move as desired. The fact that the browncloak cast this spell means that he is not a cleric, like most of the goblinoid spellcasters in the comic so far. The brown cloak apparently signifies this distinction from the blue-cloaked clerics and the red-cloaked high priest.
- Initiative Haley the ability to surprise her opponents and deal Sneak Attack damage.
Trivia[]
- Ho Thanh, Niu, and Isamu, unnamed in their introduction in the previous comic, are given names in this strip, though we have yet to learn Thanh's first name.