The party searches the desert for the gate.
Cast
- The Order of the Stick
- Mr. Scruffy ◀ ▶
- Blackwing ◀ ▶
- Bag of Tricks Rat ◀ ▶
- Bag of Tricks Dog ◀
Transcript
- Panel 1
Desert daytime.
Roy uses sextant.
Durkon uses Arcane Sight.
Vaarsuvius uses Arcane Sight.
Blackwing uses Arcane Sight.
Elan runs.
- Panel 2
Desert nighttime.
Vaarsuvius and Blackwing flying in a moonlit night using Arcane Sight.
- Panel 3
Desert daytime.
Haley digs in the ground.
Elan frames a picture with his hands.
- Panel 4
Desert nighttime.
Durkon performs a divination.
Roy uses sextant.
- Panel 5
Desert daytime.
Mr Scruffy is chased by Scorpion.
- Panel 6
Desert nighttime.
Belkar cooks scorpion.
- Panel 7
Desert daytime.
Roy uses bag of tricks.
- Panel 8
Desert nighttime.
Haley uses a metal detector.
Vaarsuvius trances.
- Panel 9
Desert daytime.
Elan fights cactus.
- Panel 10
Desert nighttime
Haley and Elan sleep together. Haley holds cactus flower, Elan bristles with catucs spines.
Durkon searches
- Panel 11
Desert daytime
Elan (singing): ♪We're searchin', yeah, searchin' lows and highs!♪
Elan (singing): ♪Lookin' for our future beneath orange skies!♪
Roy: Will you knock it off with that damn lute?!? I'm trying to do calculations in my head!!
Elan: Hey, you told me to use my sense of dramatic. If there's one thing I know, it's that you can't have a good montage without an 80's-style power ballad in the background
Haley: Maybe we should take 20?
Belkar: And risk twenty more pages like this? No thanks.
D&D Context
- Taking 20 takes twenty times as long as making a single check would take, but allows a skill check to be made as if a 20 (the best possible outcome) had been rolled on the check.
- Durkon and Vaarsuvius appear to still be using their True Seeing spells from the previous strip, or else using Arcane Sight as V indicates in the next strip.
- Elan is using his Inspire Competence bard class feature by singing the song.
Trivia
- Roy last used his Bag of Tricks in #443, "The First Step is a Doozy", during his fall to his death. It is not shown among his things lying in the ground around him, so either he put it back on his person or Haley and Belkar retrieved it along with his sword and Celia’s talisman when they recovered his body. Either way it seems to have stayed with him through his death and resurrection.
- This is the final appearance of the Bag of Tricks Dog. Its only other appearance is at the tea party with Elan in #232, "Because They Got Lonely in the Bag".
- Elan's song bears similarity to the "The Seeker", written and recorded by The Who (1970) and covered by Rush (2004).
- This comic presumably takes place over 6 days. However, it could be only 2 days of events disorganised. It could not be only one, as Elan gained his cactus injuries (panel 9) the day before his going to sleep with Haley (panel 10), but panel 6, which, if there was only one day shown, would occur the same night, has Elan awake without cactus injuries.