It's the six hundredth comic and they're Heading Down...
Cast
- Roy Greenhilt (as spirit) ◀ ▶
- Roy's Archon ◀ ▶
- Sara Greenhilt ◀
- Horace Greenhilt ◀ ▶
- Eric Greenhilt ◀
- An Angel
Transcript
- Panel 1, Page 1
A lone angel flies through the clouds surrounding Mount Celestia.
Horace (off-panel): OK, Roy, try it one last time:
Horace (off-panel): Step, and, swing, and—
A sound emanates from the mountain, "SHATHUNK!!"
- Panel 2, Page 1
Horace and Roy Greenhilt and Roy's Archon stand on the mountain. The Greenhilt sword impales a dummy made of a green shirt over a stake.
Horace: Perfect!
Horace: If that had been a real caster, his spell would be messed up somethin' fierce right now.
Roy's Archon: All these weeks of training since you returned from the Oracle, and you've managed to finally perfect the art of disrupting the spellcasting of a dummy.
Roy: Well, Xykon IS a sorcerer...
Roy's Archon: Hmm. Point taken.
- Panel 3, Page 1
Horace removes the sword from the dummy.
Roy: Thanks again for teaching me all these custom moves, Grandpa. It means a lot to me.
Horace: Just don't forget to spend a feat on them when you're back in the land of the living. As the song said in my day, "It don't mean a thing if you ain't paid for that swing."
- Panel 4, Page 1
The three start walking downhill.
Horace: Come on, I think I see your mother waiting for us downhill.
Roy: Time?
Roy's Archon: Five minutes after the last time you asked.
Roy: Good.
- Panel 5, Page 1
Roy, Horace, and Roy's Archon approach Eric and Sara at the bottom of the hill, where Eric plays with a toy dragon.
Eric: chomp! chomp!
Sara: Horace said you were headed back down to the clouds.
Roy: Well, Haley should be in Cliffport by now...if she can't close the deal within a few more months, I'll come back up.
- Panel 6, Page 1
Sara hands Roy a container.
Sara: I made some of my special jambalya[sic] for you to take down.
Roy: YES! Mom-balaya!
Roy: Thank you so much! I've been wanting this every day for the last three years.
Sara: Just make sure you finish it before they raise you.
Roy's Archon: It's true, you really can't take it with you.
- Panel 7, Page 1
Sara: I love you, my brave little boy.
Roy: I love you too, too, Mom.
Sara: Tell your sister I love her, too.
Roy: I will.
- Panel 8, Page 1
Sara: Say hello to this Celia girl for me. Next time I see you, I expect that you'll have put a ring on her finger and a bun in her oven.
Roy: MOM!
Sara: What? It's my paradise, too, and that means I want to be able to hear the pitter-patter of little feet—or the woosh-woosh of little wings, as the case may be.
Roy: See, now, this is why I don't usually tell you about my girlfriends.
- Panel 9, Page 1
Roy tussles Eric's hair,"tossle!", with Sara nearby.
Roy: I gotta go now, little buddy, but I'll be back, I promise.
Roy: Hopefully not for another 80 years or so, though.
Eric: bye-bye, Roy! I luv you!
Roy: I love you, too. Be good for Mommy.
- Panel 10, Page 1
Roy, Horace, and Roy's Archon stand before the doors of an elevator. Horace pushes the "down" button for the elevator. A sign reads,"EMPLOYEES ONLY! Enforced by honor system"
Roy: So, I know we used the service elevator to get back up here quickly, but aren't you going to get in big trouble for letting me use it again?
Roy's Archon: Well, Archon law says that only employees are allowed to use the lift. But it also says that I need to stay with you at all times.
Roy's Archon: Therefore, if I want to use the lift to come up and then back down, I guess I need to bring you with me, huh?
- Panel 1, Page 2
Roy: Wow, thanks. I can't believe you would stick your neck—uh, I mean, you would risk being disciplined just to help me.
Roy's Archon: Hey, I saw the size of that rift over Azure City, too.
- Panel 2, Page 2
Roy's Archon: I figure, we all have to pitch in if the good guys are going to win this thing, don't we? I can't do much, but I can do this.
Roy's Archon: An angry phone call from Heavenly Resources is a small price to pay to help save the world.
- Panel 3, Page 2
The elevator doors open, "bing!"
Horace: I'll ride down with you.
Roy: Thanks, Grandpa.
Roy's Archon: Can one of you people with fingers push the button with the cloud on it?
- Panel 4, Page 2
The elevator doors close, "bing! bing!"
- Panel 5, Page 2
They wait in silence as the elevator travels down, "wrrrrrrrrrrrr..."
- Panel 6, Page 2
Horace: Hey I bet everyone was expecting a big battle for strip #600, eh?
Horace: Ha HA!
Roy: Heh, yeah.
- Panel 7, Page 2
They stand in silence again, but are grinning.
- Panel 8, Page 2
Roy: Funny thing.
Roy: We, uh, we actually made that exact joke, five hundred strips ago.
Horace: Oh?
Roy: Yeah. What are the odds?
- Panel 9, Page 2
They again stand in silence, but only Roy is grinning.
- Panel 10, Page 2
Horace: I didn't know, 'cause I'm up there in—
Roy: Oh! No, of course. I mean, how could you have known?
Horace: Right.
Roy: Exactly.
- Panel 11, Page 2
They stand in silence again, with no emotions whatsoever.
- Panel 12, Page 2
Roy reaches into the container and starts eating Sara's jambalaya, "munch! munch!"
D&D Context
- The opening panels of the strip show Horace teaching Roy the Spellsplinter Maneuver, a non-canonical combat Feat. It allows Roy to disrupt spellcasters during casting even when they are casting defensively. Roy has used it three times in subsequent strips thus far, in #886, #928, and #1003. It is in the latter strip where the name of the Feat is given.
- The maximum age for a human in D&D is 110 years old, taking into account the +2d20 years added to the venerable age of 70. Roy obviously hopes to live to roughly that age, as he currently 29 years old.
Trivia
- In the third panel Horace references It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing, the final studio album of jazz legend Duke Ellington. The album, where Ellington appears along with singer Teresa Brewer, was released in 1973. Ellington died the following year.
- Roy is concerned about time in the fourth panel because he lost track of three months in #499, No Time to Lose.
- In the sixth panel Roy's Archon references the 1938 film You Can't Take It with You starring Jimmy Stewart, or Pulitzer Prize-winning 1936 play of the same name.
- To "have a bun in the oven" is a euphemism meaning to be pregnant.
- The Honor system is a set of principles based on trust and honesty. Such things probably work well on a plane of pure Law and Good.
- "Heavenly Resourses" is a play on Human resources, an administrative term for many organizations.
- Horace and Roy Greenhilt mention the 100th strip, where Haley Starshine says that she "thought that there would be something special for the 100th episode."
- This is the final appearance thus far of Sara Greenhilt, Roy's mom, and his little brother Eric Greenhilt, who tragically died as a young child as a result of his father Eugene's experiment gone awry. Both Sara and Eric first appeared in #113.