Shojo tells of the Order of the Scribble's quest.
Cast[]
- Roy Greenhilt ◀ ▶
- Vaarsuvius ◀ ▶
- Celia ◀ ▶
- Lord Shojo ◀ ▶
- The Order of the Scribble
- The Snarl ◀ ▶
- Mijung ◀
- A Priest of the Holey Brotherhood
- Three Dwarven Construction Workers
Transcript[]
[Transcribers note: all dialog from Shojo, Roy, V, and Celia is inset as a voiceover. They do not appear on-panel.]
- Panel 1, Page 1
Soon is holding Mijung's dead body.
Lirian: Excuse me, have you seen any lost bears around here? I've—
Lirian: Oh my gods! What happened?
Lord Shojo: Sixty-six years ago, a paladin from Azure City named Soon Kim lost his wife to one of the rifts while on a diplomatic mission to elven lands.
Lord Shojo: He soon met an elven druid, Lirian, who was investigating wildlife disappearances in the deep forest.
Lord Shojo: Together, they concluded that the same rift was responsible.
- Panel 2, Page 1
Lord Shojo: They joined forces to further research the strange rift, and to find a way to seal it, thus keeping anyone else from suffering the same fate.
Lord Shojo: They traveled the world and were joined by four allies:
Lord Shojo: Serini Toormuck, a halfling rogue.
Lord Shojo: Kraagor, a barbarian dwarf.
Lord Shojo: Girard Draketooth, an illusionist and tracker.
Lord Shojo: And Dorukan, a wizard with whom I believe you are familiar.
Celia: I'll say, he still owes me my last paycheck!
Serini: Hey Soon, next level I think I might take a level in paladin. Won't that be cool? Two paladins in the party?
Kraagor: I don't know if you're the paladin type, Serini.
Serini: Well, I've got the Charisma for it.
Girard: But wait, will we have to implant the stick up your ass, or will it grow there once you take the level?
Dorukan: If it means that she'll march in stoic silence from now on, I wholeheartedly support it.
- Panel 3, Page 1
Panel 3 is broken into five pieces showing (clockwise from top): the Redmountain Hills, Azure City, Windy Canyon, the North Pole, and the Elven Lands. At each location is a rift.
Lord Shojo: They discovered five rifts, scattered across the world. Through diligent study and magical inquiry, they were able to guess at their nature.
Roy: Hold on, I'm sure this was a great campaign for these characters, but why didn't the gods just fix the prison? They trapped this "Snarl" in the first place, didn't they?
- Panel 4, Page 1
This panel contains no images, only the inset voiceover text.
Lord Shojo: Soon and his allies learned that the gods could remake the prison without the rifts... but to do so would require the raw threads of reality that were currently being used by the world.
Vaarsuvius: So they could fix it, if they let the entire world be undone again first.
Lord Shojo: Right. They agreed it was best not to let things deteriorate to the point where the gods felt they had no choice but to destroy the world to rebuild the prison.
- Panel 5, Page 1
Cut to the Redmountain Hills, where Girard and Lirian fight a priest.
Holey Brotherhood Priest: The Holey Brotherhood believes in the right for holes to exist! You shall not seal this one!
Girard: Geez, you've got to be the dumbest villain EVER.
Lirian: Really? You think he's worse than Baron Pineapple?
Lord Shojo: So they went to each rift and defeated those that would use them for their own purposes.
- Panel 1, Page 2
Cut to the North Pole where Kraagor, Soon, Lirian, and Dorukan face the Snarl emerging from a rift.
Lord Shojo: And while they never found a way to remove the rifts entirely, they did develop means to seal them up.
Lord Shojo: Their final adventures led them to seal all five of the rifts, trapping the Snarl once again in its timeless jail.
Soon: Cast the spell! Seal the rift!
Lirian: No! Not until you're both clear!
Soon: DO IT!!
- Panel 2, Page 2
Flash forward to the same location, where a statue of Kraagor has been erected.
Lord Shojo: Their victory was not without cost, however.
Lord Shojo: They agreed, grudgingly, that the rifts needed to once again be kept secret. Like the gods before them, they feared what would happen if they fell into the wrong hands.
Lirian: Dearest Kraagor... your brave sacrifice will not be forgotten.
Serini: *Sob!*
Girard: Actually, I'm pretty sure that's excatly[sic] what will happen. Isn't that right, Soon?
- Panel 3, Page 2
Cut to Lirian and Dorukan in the Redmountain Hills.
Lord Shojo: With the rifts sealed, Lirian and Dorukan began intense magical research into a way to "lock" them. In time, they developed a design for a mystic gate that would buttress the fabric of reality around each rift and keep it from tearing further. As long as the gates stood strong, the rifts would never grow.
Lord Shojo: The pair sunk their entire fortune into building the five gates. When they were completed, the group agreed that as high-level adventurers, it was their duty to protect the gates with the most powerful forces they could bring to bear.
Lord Shojo: Unfortunately, that's when the trouble began...
- Panel 9
Dwarf #1: Geez, will you look at these plans? This human can't afford this kind of work.
Dwarf #2: Yeah, he's sure not paying us enough for this Water Dungeon... or this reinforced ceiling.
Dwarf #3: You know, if we cut corners on this big gate in the basement, I bet we can use the money to pay for a new pool table in our Rumpus Room.
Dwarf #1: Done and done.
D&D Context[]
- Many of the Paladin's abilities are based on the characters Charisma score. In the 1st and 2nd editions of D&D paladins were required to have a minimum of 17 charisma. 18 is the maximum possible for an ability score.
Trivia[]
- Dwarf #2 calls back to the strips #47, where only three of the four elements are represented in the Dungeon of Dorukan, and #69, where Celia (as a statue) crashes through the ceiling of the amulet chamber.
- Panel 2 of Page 2 of this comic contains a typo which was never fixed
- This is the final appearance of Mijung, who first appeared in the previous comic.
- Shojo's comment in panel 4 of page 1, that the gods could create a world without rifts if they undid this world and used its threads of reality for a new one, was refuted by the revelations of Thor in #1139.