Roy and Vaarsuvius discuss whether or not to trust the vampire Durkon.
Cast
- Roy Greenhilt ◀ ▶
- Vaarsuvius ◀ ▶
- The Crew of the Mechane
Transcript
- Panel 1
Kwesi: Wait, now we’re heading somewhere else? Are we a sky taxi!?!?
Andi: Nah, you’re looking at this all wrong.
Crewman with Five O'Clock Shadow: Yeah, the sooner we drop the vampire off, the sooner we find a nice fat merchant blimp!
Vaarsuvius: I took the liberty of once again attempting to contact our last outstanding Gate guardian, Ms. Serini Toormuck, vis á vis impending world-shattering doom.
Roy: Still no response?
Vaarsuvius: None.
- Panel 2
Roy: Alright, thanks. Maybe I’ll ask Durkon to try later. He said he’d be done researching that Protection from Daylight spell by morning.
Vaarsuvius: Hmmm. Does it not strike you as odd that he continues to expend resources on a spell that, if all goes according to plan, will shortly be useless?
- Panel 3
Roy: Of course it does. He said he couldn’t bear to not finish what he started—which is very Durkon.
Roy: I didn’t press the issue because if this thing with the clerics doesn’t work out, we may need him to know that spell when we face Xykon.
Roy: With our luck, Xykon will make his last stand in a sun-dappled forest glade with evil pixies or something.
- Panel 4
Vaarsuvius: You are perhaps worried that the halfling is correct and the vampire cannot be trusted?
Roy: I don’t know. I don’t think Belkar is lying—
Roy: —which, let’s be clear, is not a sentence I ever thought I’d say—
Roy: —but I also can’t assume he’s not letting his anger cloud his judgment.
- Panel 5
Roy: Every feeling, every instinct in my body tells me yes, that’s Durkon—just changed a little.
Roy: If I can help him through those changes, shouldn’t I do that? I can’t abandon my best friend when he needs me the most!
- Panel 6
Vaarsuvius: I see. When the halfling eschews logic and makes decisions emotionally, it is problematic. But when you do, it is valid.
Roy: No!
Roy: Maybe.
Roy: My gut is smarter than his gut!
- Panel 7
Vaarsuvius: Abdominal cognitive limits aside, the rational thing to do would be to judge the creature that travels with us on its own merits—
Vaarsuvius: —without regard to one’s feelings toward the late Master Thundershield.
- Panel 8
Roy: I agree. And when I do that, he’s been a model part member. Hell, the one time he got agitated today, he was actively pursuing a resurrection spell.
Vaarsuvius: Your intuition and your intellect are in agreement, yet you still remain conflicted.
Roy: Weird, huh?
- Panel 9
Vaarsuvius: It would appear that you are of two guts on the matter. A conundrum that shall unravel itself in time?
Roy: Yeah. Tomorrow will hopefully resolve this whole situation one way or the other.
- Panel 10
Wide view of the Mechane at its airship dock.
- Panel 11
Vaarsuvius: Also, would it be too much to ask for a few random encounters while we’re at it?
Vaarsuvius: Miss Starshine apparently leveled today without our participation.
Roy: Are you kidding me? I just barely caught up to where I was before I died!
D&D Context
- When a character is brought back to life by a Resurrection spell (or other methods), he loses one level. Thus Roy has been working to restore the experience points he lost and is only at the level he was when he died in #443, while Haley and the others have been gaining experience the whole time. Observers of the comics put Roy's level at 14, while Haley and V are 16th level. Roy wishes for random encounters, the type that usually occur when traveling from one place to another, because he needs to gain experience before he faces Xykon again.
Trivia
- This is the first appearance of Kwesi, though she has yet to be named.
- Serini Toormuck was the last known living member of the Order of the Scribble. Her whereabouts are unknown. Xykon possesses her diary and used it to learn the location of all of the Gates.