Vaarsuvius and General Chang face off against the Death Knight.
Cast
- Vaarsuvius ◀ ▶
- Blackwing ◀ ▶
- General Chang ◀ ▶
- The Death Knight ◀ ▶
- A Baker's Dozen Azure City Soldiers
Transcript
- Panel 1
General Chang, Vaarsuvius and the soldiers have the Death Knight surrounded.
General Chang: Surrender!
- Panel 2
Death Knight: Burn.
The death knight projects an explosion of fire around him. The soldiers are all killed.
- Panel 3
Chang: You bastard!
Death Knight: Your wretched soul shall soon join those of your men.
- Panel 4
Chang: You'll never take this city while I'm alive, monster.
The general cuts at the death knight with his katana, "slash! slash!"
- Panel 5
Death Knight: Terms accepted.
General Chang is mortally wounded as the death knight impales him with his scimitar, "PRLURTCH!" extending his entire arm through the old man's body.
- Panel 6
General Chang lies dead on the ground as the death knight advances on Vaarsuvius.
Death Knight: And now for you, elf. Your end is nigh.
Vaarsuvius: Indeed, I have proven quite unable to consistently overcome your spell resistance, leaving me but one tool at my disposal:
- Panel 7
Vaarsuvius: My loyal raven familiar, who has, naturally, been at my side all along.
Blackwing appears with an audible "POP!"
- Panel 8
Vaarsuvius: Fly, uh, Bird-That-Miss-Starshine-Named! Distract the horrific undead warrior while I escape to safety!
- Panel 9
Blackwing: Caw CAW! Caw caw caw caw, caw!*
Tranlation (inset): *Screw THAT! You're on your own, mammal!
- Panel 10
Blackwing winks out of existence with an audible "POP!"
- Panel 11
Vaarsuvius: Cursed bird! I did not realize I accidentally selected "chicken" rather than "raven" from the list of familiars!
Death Knight: Choose your doom, then, chicken-mage: Original Recipe, or Extra Crispy?
D&D Context
- The Death Knight is a monster type throughout the D&D editions. In D&D 3.0 it was presented as a creature template, with a special version for the Dragonlance setting published for D&D 3.5. Death Knights have a special Abyssal Blast ability which they can use once per day to unleash a blast of fire. The blast does 1d6 damage per hit die (level) of the creature, which this Death Knight uses here to good effect.
- Wizards and sorcerers have the ability to call a familiar to them. They can choose the type of familiar from this list. Chicken is not on it. (Characters with the Improved Familiar Feat choose from this list.)
Trivia
- This strip continues the running gag where Blackwing pops into existence when remembered/needed.
- The Death Knight in the final panel refers to the types of fried chicken offered at KFC.
- This is the first appearance of Blackwing since the party met the Oracle in #331, over a hundred strips ago.