Belkar escapes his cell.
Cast
- Belkar Bitterleaf ◀ ▶
- A Prison Guard
Transcript
- Panel 1
A guard comes to Belkar's cell, a triple-padlocked trap door in the floor, with food.
- Panel 2
Guard: Hello? I have your dinner.
Belkar: Congratulations. I suppose you want XP for that?
- Panel 3
Belkar: Ugh, this... this is disgusting! I can't eat this, I'd go into culinary shock!
Guard: Sorry, everyone gets the same gruel, samurai's orders.
- Panel 4
Belkar: So is there a reason you dumped me in this pit instead of in one of the nice barred cells I saw on the way in here?
Guard: I wouldn't know, I'm just a guard. But the samurai did give us instructions on how to accommodate you prisoners.
- Panel 5
Guard: "The dwarf and the two human men in one cell, the elf and the thief in another, and the halfling alone."
Guard: She said you specifically asked for it, something about "emotional duress".
Belkar: Cute.
- Panel 6
Guard: That's why we put your friends in the anti-magic cell block and you here in solitary.
Belkar: Great. Well you tell that self-righteous—
- Panel 7
Belkar: —wait. You just implied that THIS cell is not in the anti-magic block.
Guard: Well, true, but the samurai said you weren't a spellcaster.
- Panel 8
Belkar: And you naturally confiscated all of my magic items and locked them up somewhere.
Guard: Of course.
- Panel 9
Belkar: But speaking hypothetically, if I had managed to conceal my Ring of Jumping somewhere on my body that I was reasonably certain no one would search, it would still function in this dark pit?
Guard: Well, I suppose that's—
- Panel 10
Belkar jumps out of the cell into the guard, "WHUMP!"
Guard: Unnh!
- Panel 11
Belkar stabs the guard with his own sword.
Belkar: Let's see. I'm alone, wounded, and barely armed in a foreign land, trapped in a massive fortress swarming with nameless hostile human sentries.
The guard dies.
Guard: Glurk!
- Panel 12
Belkar: It's like my birthday came early, only instead of birthday cake, there are dead humans.
Belkar: Well, more dead humans, at any rate.
D&D Context
- Jumping is governed by strength. Belkar's Ring of Jumping provides a +20 competency to jump checks. It is not clear if the cell was large enough for a 20 foot running start, or how deep it is.
Trivia
- Belkar's "emotional duress" is a callback to #225, Checking In.
- Belkar acquired his Ring of Jumping +20 from Xykon's hoard when it was divided among the party in #130, Itempalooza.