Haley reasons with Crystal to convince her that it is Bozzok and not herself which is the true cause of her pain.
Cast[]
- Haley Starshine ◀ ▶
- Bandana Secundus ◀ ▶
- Crystal (as golem) ◀ ▶
- Bozzok ◀ ▶
- Hieronymus Grubwiggler ◀ ▶
- DGS Aide-de-camp ◀ ▶
Transcript[]
- Panel 1, Page 1
Crystal chokes Haley.
- Panel 2, Page 1
Haley produces Crystal's knife.
Crystal: MY KNIFE
- Panel 3, Page 1
Haley throws the knife down the road, "clank! clank!"
- Panel 4, Page 1
Haley: *gasp*
Crystal: MINE
Crystal: YOU TOOK MY KNIFE
Crystal: MINE
- Panel 5, Page 1
DGS Aide-de-camp: Ma’am are you alright?
Haley: Get your people out of here before she kills them all!
DGS Aide-de-camp: But what about you?
Haley: Just go!
- Panel 6, Page 1
Haley clicks her heels together, "CLICK! CLICK!", activating her Boots of Speed, which turn Lime Green.
- Panel 7, Page 1
Haley: Hey, Crystal! Remember the time I soaked you with water balloons right before your big date?
Haley: That wasn’t water.
- Panel 8, Page 1
Bandana: Wait! I can’t keep up with you!
Crystal: GOING TO
Crystal: KILL YOU
Bandana: Dang.
- Panel 9, Page 1
Crystal: CAN’T RUN FROM ME
Haley: Not true! I’m running right now.
Crystal: YOUR FAULT I HURT
Haley: Also not true.
- Panel 10, Page 1
Haley: I mean, heck—
Haley: —all I did was kill you!
- Panel 1, Page 2
Haley: I straight up shot you, no frills. As fair and square as being a thief gets.
Haley: The same as you tried to do to me a dozen times, but I tagged you first.
- Panel 2, Page 2
Crystal: I’M DEAD
Crystal: BECAUSE OF YOU
Haley: Dead—and pain-free.
Haley: I didn’t turn you into a crazy super-powered golem who hurts all the time. Someone else did that.
- Panel 3, Page 2
Crystal: BOZZOK NEEDS ME
Haley: Did he? Or did he just need a way to kill me?
Crystal: YOU NEED KILLING!
Haley: Yeah, probably, but still!
- Panel 4, Page 2
Haley: When I left you, you didn’t even need a fancy Resurrection, just a plain old bog-standard Raise Dead spell. Seven grand, tops, even with the Church of Loki’s usual mark-up.
Haley: How much did he spend turning you into this thing, you think? Ten times that? Twenty?
- Panel 5, Page 2
Haley begins to slow her run.
Haley: If he cared about you at all, he could have raised you like normal and spent the rest of it on a bunch of magic items for you to come and kill me with.
Haley: Instead, he made you the magic item.
- Panel 6, Page 2
Haley stops.
Haley: You’re just a tool to him.
Haley: Always have been, frankly, but this is more literal than usual.
- Panel 7, Page 2
Crystal stops.
Crystal: BUT
Crystal: HATE YOU SO MUCH
Haley: You wanna hate me, Crystal, that’s fine. That’s fair. I hate you right back.
- Panel 8, Page 2
Haley: But I’ve always been square with you, if only because I’ve never though you were important enough to lie to.
- Panel 9, Page 2
Haley: I shot you in the face.
Haley: Bozzok stabbed you in the back.
- Panel 10, Page 2
beat
- Panel 1, Page 3
Crystal smashes through the wall of the abandoned building Bozzok and Grubwiggler were hiding out in, "CRASH!"
Crystal: YOU DID THIS TO ME
D&D Context[]
- The material components for a Raise Dead spell are diamonds worth at least 5,000 gold pieces (gp). Haley's quote of 7,000 gp includes 2,000 gp as payment for the cleric. A 9th-level caster (the minimum needed to cast Raise Dead) would normally demand a sum of 450 gold (the formula being caster level x spell level x 10), giving the church of Loki a very high markup.
- The cost to build a flesh golem is listed as 10,500 gp + 780 XP (experience points). To buy one the listed price is 20,000 gp. Since Crystal is a non-standard golem, she cost more. Bozzok claims in #974 that it cost him "five times as much as a flesh golem normally would" to have Grubwiggler create the Crystal golem with her skills intact. It is not clear if he means the build cost or the purchase cost, but that puts his cost at either 52,500 gp or 100,000 gp, far in excess of what it would have cost him to simply raise Crystal from the dead. Haley's estimate of 10 to 20 times the Raise Dead cost was accurate.
Trivia[]
- Haley took Crystal's knife after killing her in #648, A Dish Best Served With +1d6 Cold Damage. Since then she has used it a couple time, notably as a sign to Roy in #716, and most recently to Sneak Attack Tarquin in #853.
- Although Haley did shoot Crystal, that was not what killed her. Haley killed Crystal with her own knife.