Belkar serves up a delicious vulture stew and they almost get away with O-Chul and Roy's body.
Cast
- Roy Greenhilt (as a corpse) ◀ ▶
- Haley Starshine ◀ ▶
- Belkar Bitterleaf ◀ ▶
- The Monster in the Darkness ◀ ▶
- Three Demon-Roaches ◀ ▶
- O-Chul ◀ ▶
- Mr. Dragon ◀
Transcript
- Panel 1
Belkar cooks over a fire being fed by a demon-roach's fiery breath.
Belkar: And just a pinch of Mama Bitterleaf’s Secret +2 Circumstance Bonus Ingredient.
Demon Roach: Hey, Buzzcut! Can I stop with the fire yet?
- Panel 2
Belkar: There are two jobs available for you: Providing the fire, or providing the side dish.
Demon Roach: Do you need hotter? Because I can do hotter.
- Panel 3
Haley: Hey, Belkar, can we speed this up? We need to meet Elan.
Belkar: I’ve been cooking for ten minutes! I’m no Iron Chef!
Demon Roach: Frankly, you’re no Rachel Ray, either.
- Panel 4
Haley takes the pot of stew.
Belkar: Hey!
Haley: Well, the thing under the umbrella is starting to talk about how he’d like to be the thimble this time, so I think this plan is now-or-never.
- Panel 5
Haley: Here you go, one piping hot pot of fresh vulture stew.
Monster in the Darkness: Oooooo! Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!
- Panel 6
The monster drinks the stew out of the pot, "GLUG GLUG GLUG GLUG GLUG GLUG GLUG"
Monster in the Darkness: Mmmmm! Stewy!
Demon Roach: He likes it! Mikey likes it!
- Panel 7
Belkar: Well, looks like I’m a sexy shoeless god of cooking, too.
Demon-Roach: *slurp*
Haley: Great, then we’ll take our friends and leave.
Monster in the Darkness: Awwww, I guess. I’m really going to miss them, you know.
- Panel 8
MitD: Goodbye, Flopsy! Goodbye, Mr. Stiffly! I’ll write to you every day.
Haley: I’ll drag Roy, you get O-Chul.
Belkar: Can’t we just stuff the paladin in the Bag of Holding.
Haley: No, he’d suffocate in there.
- Panel 9
Haley: Hey there, Roy. Don’t you worry, we’re one step closer to you taking back your job here.
Demon Roach: I dunno, I think he can use the time off.
- Panel 10
Belkar: Awww, what’s the matter, Haley? Your stint as the leader of the Order of the Stick not living up to your expectations?
Haley: No, it’s not that. It’s just that—
Monster in the Darkness: Wait a second.
- Panel 11
Monster in the Darkness: You guys are the Order of the Stick?
Haley: You’ve heard of us?
Monster in the Darkness: Yeah…
- Panel 12
Monster in the Darkness: I think I’m supposed to devour you.
Monster in the Darkness: …
Monster in the Darkness: Small campaign world, huh?
D&D Context
- Circumstance Modifiers depend on the conditions of the attempted skill. A +2 would cancel out Belkar's use of improvised tools for the meal.
- The campaign world is the setting in which a game of D&D is played.
Trivia
- In the third panel Belkar and the demon-roach reference the Iron Chef and Rachael Ray cooking shows. The Iron Chef show is timed: the chefs must complete their meals within one hour. Rachael Ray is not considered to be of the caliber of the Iron Chefs; her show is more about home cooking.
- The thimble in the fourth panel Haley refers to is the Monopoly playing piece. MitD expressed an interest in playing a game in the last strip.
- The roach in the sixth panel refers to Little Mikey a character in an ad campaign for Life cereal beginning in 1972. The campaign continued for 12 years, making it one of the longest running TV ad campaigns.
- The title refers to when the MitD was practicing his entrance line for attack the Order back in #103.
- This is the second time Belkar has used the term "sexy shoeless god of [insert activity here]."
- The Demon Roach's remark about Roy needing "time off" in panel 9 is foreshadowing that Roy won't be coming back any time soon. In fact, Roy will remain dead until #665.
- This is the final appearance of Mr. Dragon, the tea party pet who first appears in #463.