When Belkar crawls back to the party, Roy struggles to come to terms with what they have learned.
Cast
Transcript
- Panel 1, Page 1
Haley and Roy continue to untrap the door. Elan is strumming his lute to inspire the work, ♪♪♪
Haley: Annnnnd…DONE! Ha! Me 1, Inanimate objects 0!
Roy: Good, because my leg fell asleep like five minutes ago.
Elan: Hey Roy, shouldn't Durkon and Belkar be back by now?
- Panel 2, Page 1
Roy: Yeah…he should have. I doubt he ran into the LG going down, but he might've sprung a trap.
Roy: I knew I shouldn't have let him go when he asked. Now we have to look for him, too.
- Panel 3, Page 1
Haley: At least we haven't heard any explosions.
Roy: True. Come on, leave the door for now and let's find out what happened to—
- Panel 4, Page 1
Belkar crawls around the corner.
Belkar: Durkon…
Belkar: He—unnhh…
Roy: Belkar!
Roy: What happened? Is it Xykon??
- Panel 5, Page 1
Roy: Belkar, where's Durkon? What happened? Does he need us??
Belkar: He…it was the lizard guy. The cleric, Elan's dad's friend.
Haley: Malack? You guys fought Malack??
Haley: I knew that guy was bad news!
- Panel 6, Page 1
Belkar: Yeah. Only I didn't do much fighting.
Belkar: Paralyzed me right away and Durkon…he fought him one-on-one.
Belkar: And lost.
- Panel 7, Page 1
Belkar: Unnh…so woozy…
Roy: Lost? What do you mean, "lost"?
Roy: Did he get paralyzed too?
Haley: Oh gods, is Durkon—did Malack kill him??
- Panel 8, Page 1
Belkar: …Sorta.
Roy: How the hell do you "sorta" kill someone?
- Panel 9, Page 1
Belkar: Turns out that Malack is a vampire. He got Durkon in a grapple and started drinking.
Belkar: Let's just say that this time, when Durkon turned undead…he really turned undead.
- Panel 10, Page 1
Belkar: Durkon's a vampire now.
Haley: *gasp!*
Elan: No!!
- Panel 11, Page 1
Roy: …
Roy: You're unbelievable.
- Panel 1, Page 2
Roy: This is your sick idea of a joke, isn't it?
Belkar: What? No!
Roy: Make up some story about Durkon dying so you can laugh at us for caring?
Belkar: It's not a story, it's what—
- Panel 2, Page 2
Roy: Is this why you've been pretending to be part of the team, so we'd believe you?
Belkar: No, I've been doing it to get you off my damn back!
- Panel 3, Page 2
Roy: Where's Durkon really? Is he in trouble? Are you stalling us so that we can't save him?
Belkar: I already told you, you lunatic!
Belkar: The lizard sucked his blood and turned him into a vampire! Then they split together.
- Panel 4, Page 2
Roy: You're LYING!
Belkar: I have the bite marks to prove it, jackass! One set from each of them!
- Panel 5, Page 2
Roy: I shouldn't wait for some prophecy.
Roy: I should just finish you off myself before you stupid antics really DO get one of us killed!
Elan: Whoa, Roy!!
- Panel 6, Page 2
Belkar: How could this possibly be a joke? Where's the punchline?
Belkar: I know you're the straight man around here, so telling jokes isn't
really your area of expertise. But trust me, there's nothing funny about it.
Belkar: He just walked in there and saved my life and got straight up murdered for it.
- Panel 7, Page 2
Roy: Why would he have fought a vampire cleric alone, huh? Why didn't he come get us?
Belkar: To protect you, moron! To keep the vampire from dominating you into killing each other!!
- Panel 8, Page 2
Belkar: The last thing he said? He asked Lizard Vampire Guy to spare the rest of you.
Belkar: Said all that mattered was that you were safe.
- Panel 9, Page 2
Haley: Roy…I think he might be telling the truth.
Roy: Why? Just because he looks half dead himself?
Haley: No—because I don't think Belkar's capable of inventing someone doing that.
- Panel 10, Page 2
Beat. Roy looks down on Belkar in anger.
- Panel 11, Page 2
Beat. The look on Roy's face softens.
- Panel 12, Page 2
Roy bows his head in sadness. Haley and Elan hug each other.
Trivia
- According to Rich Burlew in commentary, the "Durkon turned undead" pun was something he came up with very, very early in the comic's run (as early as the third strip), but he held off on making it due to the trouble it would create for the at-the-time nascent story, ultimately deciding it would be a plot point to visit later on. The fact that Roy doesn't find Belkar's attempt at gallows humor remotely funny is something of a statement on how much the comic grew with time.