The elf invaders and the resistance are preparing an attack on the prison.
Cast
- Ho Thanh ◀ ▶
- Niu ◀ ▶
- Team Peregrine Commander ◀ ▶
- Hydra (as burger) ◀
- Goblin Dan ◀
- Team Harrier Scout ▶
- A Violet-Haired Team Harrier Scout
- Two Dozen Goblins
- A Hobgoblin Cleric
- Hundreds of Hobgoblins
- A Rat
Transcript
- Panel 1
The blue haired scout is overlooking a crowd of hobgoblins and goblins around Xykon's tower.
Team Harrier Scout: Send it.
Violet-Haired Scout: Animal Messenger.
The scout enchants a rat.
- Panel 2
The rat descends the building.
- Panel 3
The rat runs past Goblin Dan's barbecue stand. The banner reads, "Hydra-Burgers with Gouda!"
- Panel 4
The rat navigates the maze of city streets away from the gathering.
- Panel 5
The rat meets Peregrine Commander.
- Panel 6
Peregrine Commander: The message from the scouts in Team Harrier has arrived.
Peregrine Commander holds rat.
Thanh: Green string.
Thanh: Then the goblins have begun their celebration.
- Panel 7
Thanh, Niu and Peregrine Commander hide outside a castle inside a palisade. The sign reads, "AZURE OUR CITY PRISON". A dozen hobgoblins are visible guarding the tower
Thanh: Signal the attack, Niu.
- Panel 8
Niu stands with Thanh holding a morning star and a war hammer. Around her neck is a holy symbol and a bandolier of holy water vials hangs over her shoulder.
Niu: So, wait, when you said that the prison would be guarded by a skeleton crew during the speech, you didn't literally mean a—
Thanh: Niu, please.
Niu: What? Look at the world we live in, it was a reasonable assumption.
D&D Context
- Animal Messenger is a 1st level Ranger spell which allows the caster to compel a tiny animal such as a mouse or bird, to go to a spot the caster designates. As shown in this strip, it is useful for delivering messages.
- Skeletons have damage reduction 5/bludgeoning, meaning the first 5 points of damage on each attack don't count, unless the attacker is using a bludgeoning weapon, such as a morning star or war hammer, like Niu carries in the final panel. See below on "skeleton crew".
Trivia
- The banner touting Goblin Dan's hydra-burgers "with Gouda" is a reference to hobgoblin's supposed irresistible love of Gouda cheese, which Elan mentions in #463.
- In the final panel, Niu confuses Thanh's indication that there would be a "skeleton crew", that is, the barest minimum number of personnel required to keep the prison operational, with a crew composed of undead skeletons, a reasonable mistake in a world where such beings exist. See above on Skeletons and damage resistance for why she then chose to wield bludgeoning weapons.
- The title suggests that there will be a skeleton crew composed of literal skeletons during the graveyard shift, also known as the night shift.
- This is the first appearance of the Team Harrier Scout (with blue hair).
- This is the only other appearance of Goblin Dan in the main comics. He first appeared in #326, Getting Ahead in Business. That comic is chronologically his first and last appearances, as it also contains a flash-forward to the distant future where he is old and his hydra burger business is successful. The stand in this strip is an earlier phase of his entrepreneurial effort. In the side story books he also appears on one page in Good Deeds Gone Unpunished, in the Scruff and Tumble story.
- This is the final appearance of the Hydra, the infinite source of meat for Goblin Dan's hydra burgers. It first appeared in #325.