Roy died, so his father torments him.
Cast
- Roy Greenhilt ◀ ▶
- Eugene Greenhilt ◀ ▶
- Two Angels
Transcript
- Panel 1, Page 1
Roy Greenhilt and Eugene Greenhilt are walking along a cloud with a silhouette of a mountain in the background, some overhead clouds, and two unnamed angels flying overhead.
Eugene: HUZZAH!
Eugene: Three cheers for the conquering hero! Let us kill the fatted calf to celebrate his victory!
Roy: Knock it off.
- Panel 2, Page 1
Eugene: You seem upset for some reason. Come now, what’s eating you, son?
Eugene: Oh! That’s right!
Eugene: Vultures!
- Panel 3, Page 1
Roy: I’m serious, Dad, I don’t want to hear it.
Eugene: What exactly don’t you want to hear, oh firstborn child of mine?
- Panel 4, Page 1
Eugene: That your cunning plan of jumping onto the back of a moving dragon and hitting Xykon with a shiny metal stick not only failed to destroy our family’s sworn foe—
Eugene: —but also leading to you falling 300 feet to your demise?
- Panel 5, Page 1
Eugene: Or the more general point of how through your ineffective leadership, Xykon overran one of the oldest bastions of the forces of Good on the mortal plane?
Roy: HEY!
- Panel 6, Page 1
Roy: That was NOT my fault! I’m not the leader of Azure City, Hinjo is.
Eugene: Horsecrap. You were the highest level Good character on the field, and a PC to boot. It was your fight to lose.
- Panel 7, Page 1
Roy: So what you’re saying is, “With great power comes great blame.”
Eugene: I assumed that was understood.
- Panel 1, Page 2
Roy: Well, I hate to break it to you, Dad, but this isn’t the end of the line. More like halftime.
Eugene: What? How can you halve time itself?
- Panel 2, Page 2
Roy: *sigh* I should have known a sports metaphor would be wasted on you.
Roy: What I mean is, the fight against Xykon isn’t over yet. As soon as Durkon and Haley get their respective acts together, I’ll be back in the world of the living and we’ll strike back at Xykon.
- Panel 3, Page 2
Eugene dances around and waves his arms.
Eugene: Ooooo, yes! And while your friends collect the seven magic spheres to wish you back to life, you can train with the secret martial arts master who lives here in the afterlife!
Roy: …
Roy: Really?
- Panel 4, Page 2
Eugene: No, not really you moron! Does this look like “Dragonball Z” to you?!?
Roy: Could have fooled me, that last battle took long enough…
- Panel 5, Page 2
Eugene: You’re stuck here, just like me, with not much to do but wait.
Eugene: It figures. I go through all that trouble to hitch your little red wagon to an ally with enough money and power to get the job done twice…
Eugene: …and you stand there twiddling your thumbs while he gets chopped in two.
- Panel 6, Page 2
Eugene: I suppose hanging this city out to dry is the only logical conclusion to your complete failure.
Roy: You know this place looks a LOT different than I expected…
- Panel 7, Page 2
Eugenet: What are you talking about?
Roy: Well, I died, and now I’m standing here listening to you berate me.
Roy: So where’s the fire and brimstone? Where are all the devils?
- Panel 8, Page 2
Eugene: Cute, really cute, Roy.
Roy: I repent, oh Lords of the Underworld! Whatever I did to deserve this eternal punishment, I repent!
Roy: I’ll take the hot pokers, just don’t make me talk to my father!
- Panel 9, Page 2
Eugene: You know, it’s no walk in Arcadia for me here, either.
Eugene: The only silver lining on this cloud we’re both stuck on is that the Blood Oath will pass to Julia.
- Panel 10, Page 2
Roy: Oh my gods, Dad, reality check! Julia is 16 years old and a 3rd-level wizard! Xykon has 100 years and 7 spell levels on her!
Roy: What could she possibly do against him that I couldn’t?!?
- Panel 11, Page 2
Eugene: Feather Fall.
Roy: …
- Panel 12, Page 2
Roy: Damn it.
Eugene: I should’ve been so lucky.
D&D Context
- Angels in D&D are divided into three types, Devas, Planetars, and Solars. There is not enough information to discern what type of angles the two in the first panel are.
- Arcadia in D&D is one of the Outer Planes associated with Lawful Good/Lawful Neutral beings. It is describes as being like a well-maintained garden where all the trees grow in rows and rivers snake across perfectly flat plains in complex mathematical routes.
Trivia
- The title is a reference to the 1965 #1 hit Rolling Stones song Get off of my Cloud.
- Eugene Greenhilt’s first line refers to "killing the fatted calf", a term derived from the Parable of the Prodigal Son in the New Testament of the Christian Bible, which simply means a celebration.
- Roy mentions Half-time, the time between the two halves of sports games.
- Dragon Ball Z was a Japanese manga series. The main characters had to retrieve the seven Dragon Balls to be granted a wish. This wish could for instance be to resurrect the dead. The main characters frequently resurrect each other by this method, and are sometimes far stronger after they come back due to a martial arts trainer named King Kai who lives in the afterlife. Ironically, Roy does train with a martial expert and learns a new Feat in the afterlife.
- "With great power comes great blame" is a reference to the phrase "With great power comes great responsibility", made famous by Spider-Man.
- This is the first strip of the fourth book Don't Split The Party.