Having finally come to terms with the fact that his father is Evil, Elan does what he has to do.
Cast
Transcript
- Panel 1
Tarquin: Crap, the three prisoners at the bottom of the "E" burned out early. Now it looks like I just really like custard.
- Panel 2
Elan runs to the door
Elan: Oh my gods! I...I need to help those people!
Elan: Vaarsuvius! Haley! Durkon!
Tarquin: There's no need to run around like a cockatrice with its head cut off. They're 10 miles away.
Tarquin: Unless your mage can teleport, you won't make it out there before they all die.
- Panel 3
Elan: You!! Why did you do that to those poor people??
Elan: Hadn't you made their lives hard enough already??
Tarquin: Note to self: Elf cannot cast Teleport.
- Panel 4
Elan: How could you do something so cruel, for no reason other than... a stupid SIGN!
Tarquin: Hey, that sign was my gift to you. And geez, man up a little. You sound like your mother.
- Panel 5
Tarquin: "Oh, Tarquin, you jerk! When you said you would liquify every man in the tavern if one of them grabbed my butt again during my shift, I didn't think you meant it!"
Tarquin: I don't know why she was complaining. I mean, where did she think all that great fertilizer for her precious veggie garden came from anyway?
- Panel 6
Elan: You're... you're EVIL! Aren't you? With all capital letters!
Tarquin: Son, labels like "good" and "evil" are just words. Words with many possible capitalizations.
- Panel 7
Tarquin: They're outdated concepts that do nothing but cause conflict.
Tarquin: What I'm trying to do here is move beyond those ideas into a world where no one has any reason to fight one another.
Tarquin: But you can't make an omelette without ruthlessly crushing dozens of eggs beneath your steel boot and then publicly disemboweling the chickens that laid them as a warning to others.
- Panel 8
Elan: Haley was totally right about you! You're just like Kubota, or Xykon...
Elan: ...or NALE!!
Tarquin: Now that's uncalled for, young man.
- Panel 9
Tarquin: Your brother was a disorganized buffoon who cared more for satisfying his own ego than any realistic plan for world domination.
Tarquin: All he ever cared about was that everyone knew that HE was the victor, even when the situation called for keeping a low profile.
- Panel 10
Elan: So...you didn't care that he wanted to take over, you just didn't like the way that he wanted to take over??
Tarquin: Yes! Of course. Procedure is important, Elan.
- Panel 11
Elan: Does that mean you wouldn't have cared what he believed in, as long as he went about it in the correct way?
Tarquin: Well, I suppose, after a fashion, but—
Elan: Good!
- Panel 12
Elan: Because I'm pretty sure a climactic duel is the proper procedure for dramatically defeating corrupt tyrants!
Tarquin: On a rooftop, no less.
Tarquin: Exquisite.
D&D Context
- Teleport is a 5th level wizard spell from the conjuration school. Vaarsuvius is an Evoker, and chose conjuration and necromancy as his or her barred schools (though to be fair, V apparently did this under 3.0 rules when teleportation was in the transmutation school), so V cannot cast this spell.
Trivia
- In panel 2, a panicked Elan shouts Durkon’s name along with Vaarsuvius and Haley, effectively blowing his cover. Tarquin does not let on that he notices this however, at least not until #818. On the other hand, the connection to Durkon isn't really a secret since Haley announced that Durkon helped her convert to a worshipper of Thor in #743 and vocally kept at it in front of Tarquin at the dinner on #744.
- Tarquin puts his knowledge about V's inability to cast Teleport to good use in #926.